Dim lights on for the entire living area in the evening.

[Guest]

My house has a large open living space with several distinct areas. I don’t like the areas we are not using to be totally dark. The programs turn on dim lights in the house living areas around sunset. I have several light scenes lighting the area. This is a setup (I show only one scene here for brevity):

 

Scene Hall - ON:

 

Hall A - controller

Hall B - controller

Hall C - controller

RL 1 - controller

 

In that scene I have all controllers set to the desired brightness when the area is actively used, which in my case is 70%. The ramp is set to 2 sec.

 

Scene Hall - dim:

 

Hall A - responder

Hall B - responder

Hall C - responder

 

The brightness in this scene is set to the dim level for when the area is not in use. It is 20% in my case, and ramp is also set to 2 sec. This slower ramp allows ISY to catch up and override default scene controllers.

 

I created several other groups for the light scenes in the living area the same way. One scene for the area to be light dimly, and the other for ON.

 

There are several programs that control the setup.

 

 ‘Evening time’ control program 
If
       From    Sunset  -  1 hour 
       To      10:45:00PM (same day)

Then

       Run program 'House lights on dim'

Else
       Run program 'House lights off'

 

Programs House lights on dim and off simply contain all light scenes I want to control

 

 Program ‘House lights on dim’
If
  - No Conditions - (To add one, press 'Schedule' or 'Condition')

Then
       Set Scene 'Hall - dim’ On
       Set Scene ‘Other Scene - dim’ On
       ...... more scenes

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

 

and

 

 Program ‘House lights off’
If
  - No Conditions - (To add one, press 'Schedule' or 'Condition')

Then
       Set Scene 'Hall - dim’ Off
       Set Scene ‘Other Scene - dim’ Off
       ...... more scenes

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

 

The above three programs can be combined into one. I prefer them separately, since it is easier to reuse the parts for other purposes.

 

Now we need programs for turning the lights down to the dim level. For that I have one program for each dim light scene I created. Here is one for the Hall lights.

 

If

       Program 'Evening time' is True
   And (
            Control 'Hall A' is switched Off
         Or Control 'Hall B' is switched Off
         Or Control 'Hall C' is switched Off
         Or Control 'RL 1' is switched Off
       )

Then
       Set Scene 'Hall - dim’ On

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

 

Each scene in the setup has its own controlling program similar to the above.

 

I don’t have a manual override in my setup, but if I wanted to provide one I would have all the programs in a separate folder and I would apply folder condition monitoring status of a selected KPL key. For instance:

 

Folder Conditions for 'Evening lights'
Add conditions to limit when programs in this folder are allowed to run.

If
       Status  'Master KPL - F' is not On

Then
  Allow the programs in this folder to run.

 

Mark