Detecting a manual ON

Posted on
Thu Apr 16, 2015 5:01 am
haavarda offline
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Posts: 702
Joined: Aug 18, 2012
Location: Norway

Detecting a manual ON

I started to play around with this plugin for some time ago, and I must say it is really solid. Tank you for the work that has been put in to this.

Now I have one thing that is a bit annoying, this is however related to the bulb, not directly the plugin.
If a bulb has been turned off manually from the switch, and it is turned back on, it comes on with a rather bright light. My light is right next to the kids bedroom so I dont want a super bright light...
Is there a way to detect that the light has been turned on manually and set the actions accordingly?

Håvard

Håvard

Posted on
Fri Apr 17, 2015 2:08 am
nsheldon offline
Posts: 2469
Joined: Aug 09, 2010
Location: CA

Re: Detecting a manual ON

Hi Håvard.

I'm glad you like the plugin and that it's working well for you.

Yes, this is a common complaint about the Hue bulbs. They do not return to their last setting when power is turned off then back on again.

You might be able to set up a trigger (which would have to have multiple conditions and probably some delayed actions) in Indigo that returns a Hue bulb back to it's previous state if power was turned off at the switch then turned back on later. However, the process of properly detecting the difference between power being restored and simply turning the bulb on from the Hue app on your iPhone could become rather complex. From Indigo's perspective, there's not a lot of difference. Additionally, the Hue Lights plugin doesn't assume that a bulb is off just because the hub reports that the bulb is unreachable (a bulb can be reported by the hub as unreachable due to wi-fi or other interference, or because the bulb might be near the wireless range limits).

A far better (though more expensive) solution would be to get a Hue Tap switch, leave the main power switch on all the time, and only using the Hue Tap to turn on and off the Hue bulb. This way, the hub knows that the bulb is off, and so will the Hue Lights plugin (with up to an 8 second delay). But more importantly, you could assign the 4 buttons on the Tap to 4 different brightness/color settings and use the most appropriate button depending on whether the kids are asleep or not.

Posted on
Tue Apr 28, 2015 1:55 am
haavarda offline
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Posts: 702
Joined: Aug 18, 2012
Location: Norway

Re: Detecting a manual ON

Thank you for your reply. I ended up with the following:
Trigger when lights brightness is above 95% --> Set variable ManON to true with delay of 5 seconds. (Delay because it takes some time to get the updated light configuration, and this needs to be updated when the next trigger fires)
Trigger when ManON is true --> Adjust hue lights, if the light has the configuration that matches the manual on.

This works for me, so I am happy :)

Håvard

Håvard

Posted on
Tue Apr 28, 2015 2:00 am
nsheldon offline
Posts: 2469
Joined: Aug 09, 2010
Location: CA

Re: Detecting a manual ON

Hi Håvard

Great! I'm glad you found a solution with which you are pleased. Happy automating!

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