Best practices for keeping scene buttons in sync with light switches?

[Andy P]

For example. I have a scene controller (keypad 2334-232) button C which turns on the cooking scene - which includes undercounter lights, recessed lights and pendants. I normally use the scene controller (keypad) to turn them all on and off. HOWEVER, my wife likes to turn off one or more of the individual switches. So then all the lights are off but the C button is still lit.

My question is - what are best practices to keep scenes and individual switches in sync given there are lots of combinations of the switches that will be in use during the evening, not just ones that are exactly the same as a scene.

The one thing that I have recently done is to add a program, which I call 'Cooking scene backstop', that says if (sw1 and sw2 and s3) are off, then turn off the scene, so at least I don't have the stray scene button light on any more that I have to turn off and then back on to get the scene to come on.

Thoughts?

Andy

Edited March 15, 2023 by Andy P

[lilyoyo1]

29 minutes ago, Andy P said:

For example. I have a scene controller (keypad 2334-232) button C which turns on the cooking scene - which includes undercounter lights, recessed lights and pendants. I normally use the scene controller (keypad) to turn them all on and off. HOWEVER, my wife likes to turn off one or more of the individual switches. So then all the lights are off but the C button is still lit.

My question is - what are best practices to keep scenes and individual switches in sync given there are lots of combinations of the switches that will be in use during the evening, not just ones that are exactly the same as a scene.

The one thing that I have recently done is to add a program, which I call 'Cooking scene backstop', that says if (sw1 and sw2 and s3) are off, then turn off the scene, so at least I don't have the stray scene button light on any more that I have to turn off and then back on to get the scene to come on.

Thoughts?

Andy

This isn't a 1 size fits all situation. You could write a program that if any of the individual switches are turned off, then turn off your keypad button. Based on your setup and how you control your home, status may need to be used

Edited March 15, 2023 by lilyoyo1

[Goose66]

+1 for "it depends." I use these "backstop" programs for "All Lights" buttons, and it depends on what the most likely use case for the "All Lights" button will be.

For example, in our old house, in the Master Bedroom (before our full-on Alexa integration) the most likely thing we wanted from the "All Lights" button (scene controller) was to turn all the lights OFF. So the "backstop" program ran any time the status of a Master Bedroom light changed and would make sure the "All Lights" button was ON so long as ANY of the Master Bedroom lights were on. That way, the button was setup to perform an "All Lights" OFF if any of the individual lights or any combination of lights were ON.

In contrast, the All Lights button for my backyard was handled differently. Here, some of the lights were part of the evening and nightime lighting schemes, so there were usually some of the lights on at night. The most used use case for the All Lights button for our backyard lights, however, was to turn all the lights ON, including the floods, when the dog went outside (yes I know most dogs don't need it, but she was old). So the backstop program for the backyard All Lights button only turned on the button if EVERY backyard light was on. That way the button was most often setup to turn all of the backyard lights ON if pressed. Side Note: the problem here, of course, was that using the button to turn all of the backyard lights OFF when the dog came back in didn't return them to the evening or nightime state, but that was not really a problem and it would get all cleaned up on the next scheduled state change.

Another side note: one may think that the inconsistency was a problem, but this setup had a high WAF even without her understanding the subtleties of the implementation because the result was that the scene button was most often in the state that one would want it to be for the primary use case.

Edited March 15, 2023 by Goose66

[Andy P]

4 hours ago, Goose66 said:

Another side note: one may think that the inconsistency was a problem, but this setup had a high WAF even without her understanding the subtleties of the implementation because the result was that the scene button was most often in the state that one would want it to be for the primary use case.

Makes complete sense and I think your last statement is the most important - it works the way someone would expect it to.

I also set up a number of programs called 'minimum dim level from off' in bedrooms and bathrooms. The problem I was trying to solve was that the default dim level is great most of the time, but if you are in the middle of the night, you just want to turn the light on to the lowest level that won't flicker. So if the light is off and you press off, the minimum dim program runs and you have a nice dim light. Works great for me, but doesn't meet the WAF because she likes to hit the off button on lights that are already off just to make sure they are off - bad surprise! I might change it to fast off when off.

Andy

Edited March 15, 2023 by Andy P

[Lore]

Most of my scenes have no controller and are fired off by programs.  The control button is in an empty scene and a program checks status.  If it's on, I set stuff how I want then I turn it off.  In a few rare cases, I set the scene button to off if anything it controls is tampered with.  This allows me to get quickly back to the scene without having to toggle it off and on again.  I also try to make sure the switches are set to match the lights they control when I trip off a scene.  I sort of had to do it this way once I started mixing in Hue lights and other non-Insteon devices into scenes.