Sunrise lamp

Posted on
Wed Oct 01, 2014 8:23 am
Shutter offline
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Location: London, UK

Sunrise lamp

Is there a more elegant solution to turning on a lamp at a set time and have it's brightness turn up over a set time than the how to in the wiki?

am I missing a feature in Indigo Pro that allow one to create a schedule where a light can brighten by X over Y? Having to do it using two schedules, as in the wiki, seems somewhat convoluted. Surely this is built-in, right? (I have looked).

Thanks

Posted on
Wed Oct 01, 2014 6:06 pm
jay (support) offline
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Re: Sunrise lamp

No, sunrise simulation is not built-in. It's not a highly (or even mediumly) requested feature. There are quite a few different ways - the one in the wiki, as stated, works with any technology and requires no scripting so it has the lowest cost of entry.

I suppose elegance is in the eye of the beholder... ;)

If you're using INSTEON dimmers and you want a relatively fast ramp you can just use the built-in ability of those switches to have a ramp rate associated with an INSTEON scene. The longest duration I believe is 9 minutes though so it may be too quick for you.

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Thu Oct 02, 2014 5:25 am
Shutter offline
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Location: London, UK

Re: Sunrise lamp

Hi Jay,

I'm kind of surprised it's not requested more, or built in.

I would have thought something as simple as this rough mockup would suffice.

Screen-Shot-2014-10-02-at-08.07.16-am.png
Screen-Shot-2014-10-02-at-08.07.16-am.png (58.11 KiB) Viewed 4884 times

Posted on
Thu Oct 02, 2014 11:32 pm
howartp offline
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Location: West Yorkshire, UK

Sunrise lamp

Looks good if it can be developed - after Touch is released.

In the meantime, can a Python script snippet run in the background or does it time out?

If so, you could have something like this (using random code as I'm not familiar with syntax yet):

Code: Select all
duration = 10 minutes
X = indigo.devices(123)
X.setDimmerLevel(10%)
Whilst x.DimmerLevel < 100%
Sleep duration/18
X.increaseDimmerLevelBy(10%)
Loop

Posted on
Fri Oct 03, 2014 8:20 am
ckeyes888 offline
Posts: 2417
Joined: Nov 26, 2009
Location: Kalispell, MT

Re: Sunrise lamp

There is also the BrightenWithRate attachment script that works very well
on newer Insteon dimmer switches.

When it's running you simply execute a script like this. BrightenWithRate(50, 1, "Some Light")
where the numbers are the end brightness and the ramp rate.

edit: Actually this may be the way to go now: viewtopic.php?t=8810&f=31

Carl

Posted on
Sat Oct 04, 2014 5:54 am
Shutter offline
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Location: London, UK

Re: Sunrise lamp

Carl,

Alas I'm using Z-Wave.

Posted on
Sun Oct 05, 2014 5:23 am
Shutter offline
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Joined: Mar 07, 2014
Location: London, UK

Re: Sunrise lamp

So after spending quite some time yesterday on this I've come to the conclusion that yes it works using the wiki example but 3 schedules to turn on a lamp in the morning and then turn it off again a bit later does seem like over kill. (I could probably combine the off schedule into on of the other schedules, but even at 2 it seems like too much).

Yes, I'll be logging a feature request, even though I appear to be the only one who's asking for something smoother. :wink:

In fairness I will say that it took a lot longer to set up yesterday because the dimmer module I'm using had a parameter setting that was throwing all my tests off. Once I figured that out it just worked.

Posted on
Sun Oct 05, 2014 7:56 am
howartp offline
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Location: West Yorkshire, UK

Re: Sunrise lamp

I started playing with it as well but gave up - would the Timers&Pesters plugin help any better than schedules?

Prtrr

Posted on
Sun Oct 05, 2014 9:01 am
autolog offline
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Location: West Sussex, UK [GMT aka UTC]

Re: Sunrise lamp

LIFX lamps allow you to set the duration of an ON / OFF, so it is possible to ramp it up/down very slowly to simulate a sunrise or sunset :)

Posted on
Thu Jan 08, 2015 10:48 pm
jheddings offline
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Location: Denver, CO

Re: Sunrise lamp

Just wanted to post an alternative to the wiki documents that I've been using... It still requires a bit of setup, but it seems to work well. I suppose it requires the pro version since it uses the Timer plugins, but I am not certain about that. It requires 4 parts (device, timer, trigger, schedule), which is more than the wiki, but it gives me the behavior and control I wanted...

Add a new device that supports dimming, e.g. 'Bedroom Lamp'

Create a Timer (called Sunrise Loop Delay) with a start value of 10 sec (or whatever you'd like the increment to be).

Create a Trigger when 'Sunrise Loop Delay' expires:
- Condition: 'Bedroom Lamp' brightness less than 100
- Actions: brighten 'Bedroom Lamp' by 2% (or whatever you'd like the increment to be) and restart the 'Sunrise Loop Delay' timer

Create a Schedule (called Rise & Shine) that triggers at a specific time (6:00a) and restarts the 'Sunrise Loop Delay' timer.

This provides a 8-minute "sunrise" effect, incrementing by 2% every 10 seconds. Once the brightness reaches 100%, the timer stops You can adjust the timer and 'brighten by' increments to get the effect you want. This is an easier approach for me to manage, although the downside is it does not respond to "turn off" without additional help.

HTH,
--jah

Posted on
Fri Jan 09, 2015 4:11 am
Shutter offline
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Joined: Mar 07, 2014
Location: London, UK

Re: Sunrise lamp

Thanks for that. I really need to look into Timers and Pesters. I'll give this a try as my introductions to Timers.

On a related note I've just moved from a bedside table lamp with a dimmable LED connected to a dimmer Z-Wave socket, to a dimmer module behind the light switch. In the transition I bought on of these bulbs: Philips DimTone. It's not bad as a sunrise lamp - certainly makes getting up in the morning a lot easier. :)

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