I just got my ISY yesterday and LOVE it. Never could figure out Girder and just 1 day in with ISY I even have it networked to my home entertainment system to dim lights automatically when a movie starts playing.

 

I want the light switches in my house to only control certain lights/set certain brightness levels based on the time of day.

 

I tried having scenes with the switches as controllers and then setting the scene parameters using programs. But whenever I pressed any controller switch it turned on ALL devices in the scene, even ones that are set to be off or dimmed.

 

Right now I have a program that based on a schedule that sets the various scene parameters to on/off/dim:

If
       Program 'Is It Bright' is True

Then
       In Scene 'Living Room / Living Room Lights' Set 'Living Room / Lamp A' 100% (On Level)
       In Scene 'Living Room / Living Room Lights' Set 'Living Room / Switch East' 0% (On Level)
       In Scene 'Living Room / Living Room Lights' Set 'Living Room / White Lamp' 0% (On Level)

Else
       In Scene 'Living Room / Living Room Lights' Set 'Living Room / Lamp A' 100% (On Level)
       In Scene 'Living Room / Living Room Lights' Set 'Living Room / Switch East' 100% (On Level)
       In Scene 'Living Room / Living Room Lights' Set 'Living Room / White Lamp' 100% (On Level)

 

And then two additional ON/OFF programs that are triggered by lights:

ex:

If
       Control 'Living Room / LivingRoom.Keypad1' is switched On
    Or Control 'Living Room / Switch East' is switched On

Then
       Set Scene 'Living Room / Living Room Lights' On

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

 

It works, but it seems clumsy. Is there a better way to do it?

 

Bonus questions: Is there any way to stop a SwitchLinc from controlling its local load?

 

What is the best way to determine brightness? Right now I'm using sunset times, but what about a cloudy or rainy day?

It works, but it seems clumsy. Is there a better way to do it?

 

Looks good to me.

 

Bonus questions: Is there any way to stop a SwitchLinc from controlling its local load?

 

I don't believe so

 

What is the best way to determine brightness? Right now I'm using sunset times, but what about a cloudy or rainy day?

 

The two options of which I am aware would be motion sensors or weatherbug data. Motion sensors generally have light sensors. Weatherbug data requires the additional module, My gut sense would be that weatherbug data might work a little better, in that I understand that you could better define "dark", using some scale (0 - 100?). On the other hand, depending on where you live, you may not have a good source of data close by.