Automatically dimming a scene...

[TanerH]

Hello!

 

I have a couple scenes set up for some lights in the back hall of my house, and I wrote programs to turn them ON in the evening, then (later at night) automatically dim both scenes if either of them is currently ON, and ultimately turning them OFF even later at night.

 

I did the dimming by setting the "On Level" for each device in each scene, and then issuing an "ON" command. (It seemed to work better with the 5sec delay in there, which might be overkill, but *shrug*)

 

I then restore the "On Level" (back to 100%) when I auto-shut-off the lights late at night, so that the next day they come on at 100% once again (or any other time I issue an 'On' to that scene outside of a hardware/Local control)

 

I'm mostly curious if this back-and-forth is necessary, versus somehow just sending the scene a "set current brightness to 25%" command (which I couldn't seem to find?)

 

Here're are the programs, with the explanation that (PRI) is just the hardware that is physically controlling the load, versus the other dimmers ( (Bar) and (Window) ) which are their respective slaves:

 

ON:

If
       Time is Sunset  - 30 minutes

Then
       Set Scene 'Hall Sconces Back' On
       Set Scene 'Hall Sconces Laundry' On

Else
  - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action')

 

DIM:

If
       Time is 12:30:00AM
   And-(
      |     Status  'Hall Sconce Back (PRI)' > 20%
      |  Or Status  'Hall Sconce Laundry (PRI)' > 20%
      -)

Then
       In Scene 'Hall Sconces Back' Set 'Hall Sconce Back (PRI)' 25% (On Level)
       In Scene 'Hall Sconces Back' Set 'Hall Sconce Back (Bar)' 25% (On Level)
       In Scene 'Hall Sconces Laundry' Set 'Hall Sconce Laundry (PRI)' 25% (On Level)
       In Scene 'Hall Sconces Laundry' Set 'Hall Sconce Laundry  (Window)' 25% (On Level)
       Wait  5 seconds
       Set Scene 'Hall Sconces Back' On
       Set Scene 'Hall Sconces Laundry' On

Else
  - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action')

12:30am dimming (if not already off)

 

Full OFF (mostly in case I've forgotten to turn them off ):

If
       Time is  3:00:00AM

Then
       Set Scene 'Hall Sconces Back' Off
       Set Scene 'Hall Sconces Laundry' Off
       Run Program 'Hall Sconce Restore' (Then Path)

Else
  - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action')

 

And the "Restore" program is just:

If
  - No Conditions - (To add one, press 'Schedule' or 'Condition')

Then
       In Scene 'Hall Sconces Back' Set 'Hall Sconce Back (PRI)' 100% (On Level)
       In Scene 'Hall Sconces Back' Set 'Hall Sconce Back (Bar)' 100% (On Level)
       In Scene 'Hall Sconces Laundry' Set 'Hall Sconce Laundry (PRI)' 100% (On Level)
       In Scene 'Hall Sconces Laundry' Set 'Hall Sconce Laundry (Window)' 100% (On Level)

Else
  - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action')

Any thoughts/comments?

 

I had initially tried to restore the "On Level" of the scenes at the end of the "Then" clause in the Dimming program, but that didn't seem to work... it would never dim the scenes -- they just stayed at 100%

 

-Taner

[LeeG]

The individual Responder On Levels live in each Responder device. Using the Adjust Scene is the technique for changing those values. A few points, it is not necessary to set the On Level to 100% to perform the Scene Off. A Scene Off command turns the devices Off regardless of the defined Responder On Level. Putting them back to 100% is of course necessary if the Scene should turn the devices On to 100%.

 

There is no Insteon command that overrides the Responder On Levels on a Scene command basis. Adjusting the Responder On Levels is the way it is done. Could have a seperate set of Scenes, on that has 100% On Level and one that has 25% On Level and simply use one set of Scenes or the other.

[Xathros]

TannerH-

 

As LeeG pointed out, you could just use multiple scenes with different On levels defined in each but if you are activating these with Keypads or Swtichlincs that are defined as controllers, you are limited to one scene per controller.

 

I am using the same approach as you (adjusting then re-activating scenes). Works well for me and some others here that are doing the same thing. Actually, I recently removed the re-activate step from a few of mine as the lights dimming by themselves seems to bother a few of my family members. So in certain cases I adjust the on levels and they will be used the next time someone turns on a switch. This, they don't seem to mind.

 

One thing I noticed is that you have your reset to 100% as a stand alone program called by your 3am turn off routine. Unless you are calling that from multiple programs, you could just roll all of that into the 3am off routine and have one less program. Also, I would move that to 2:55am to avoid a traffic jam with the default 3am query (unless you have disabled that).

 

-Xathros