Light bulbs and HKL Siri

[yassi]

I've switched a couple of day ago from the old HomeKit Bridge to this pulgin.
Works great so far, thanks to the developer!

However, there is a difference how the light bulbs (Hue) are now turned on.

I have all bulbs to power up at around 25 or 50% brightness, this is done in the device properties of the Indigo device. See screenshot.
With this new plugin, when i turn on the bulbs via HomeKit, the bulbs are always turning on with 100% brightness.
It's not a deal if use a Siri voice command, but via the Home app it's annoying.

The old HomeKit plugin was able to read the device information, so the bulbs were turned on with the saved brightness.

Am I missing something, or is it not possible (yet) to use the pre(saved) brighness value?

Thx,
Yassi

[GlennNZ]

Hi

Good to hear mainly okay. I’ll have a look at the light handling and see if anything has changed.

Hue bulbs because go Hue bulb —> Hue Plugin —> Homekit Plugin —> Homekit are quite a entangled problem.

The old plugin - did not read the default brightness of the each hue device before interacting with it. Well I probably should check that! Which will do - but strongly guess is would not have, because of way homekit send its commands

The issue I guess is:

If HomeKit is sent on. Homekit will turn on the light with the Indigo On command. This should use the default brightness or the previous brightness level (depending on the Hue Plugin behaviour, which has changed over time as well). The turn off/turn on button would show how the Hue plugin currently behaves.

If Homekit plugin is sent ‘On, 100% Brightness’, by various HomeKit apps. Which often it is - when and how seem relatively random, as it is different from Voice and Apps. Then HomeKit Plugin has to use the brightness that is has been sent. Otherwise it would end up ignore all brightness control. We have no way of knowing whether just a on (default/last value) or a brightness 100% has been specifically requested.

I would guess from earlier testing that a lot of the time (and OS upgrades may have changed this) that the brightness is now included in the On command.

An immediate way around this is to change the Lights in the Homekit plugin to simple lights only. (without brightness control) Remove them from the HomeKit Bridge. Save, Close, restarting the bridge. Check gone in app. Then re-add as simple Light (Basic switch equivalent).
These will loose brightness control, but because on/off only should default to previous brightness values. This may be best solution as seems like dimming control of these lights isn’t needed?

Glenn


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[yassi]

Hi Glenn,

thanks for explaining this.

However, configuring the lights as switches is not a solution for me (at least), because I still need dimming from time to time.
For instance, bulbs in the living room are often set to lower/higher brightness when needed.


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[GlennNZ]

Okay, well that being said - it seems like you are potentially stuck.

I have had a good look at this and HomeKit App almost always is sending a Brightness level with on/off request from the summary screen.

If you enable Debug logging in HLKS (Debug Boxes 5 only enabled and Detailed debug messaging in log) you can check what you are seeing.

Example:
Hue Light, default set to 25%
Turn off/Turn On Light via Indigo UI - goes to 25% and 0% as wished.

Within Homekit:
Turn on light - with press of device in summary main screen (not the dimmer slider details screen)
HomeKit App sends:

Code: Select all

   
HomeKitLink Siri Debug          (plugin.py:Plugin_setter_callback:1947): Char_Values [List] to Set: {'On': 1, 'Brightness': 100}
HomeKitLink Siri Debug          (plugin.py:Plugin_setter_callback:2129): Found a brightnessLevel state in IndigoDevice try using that:  ValuetoSet: {'On': 1, 'Brightness': 100}

This is Homekit app telling the HomeKit Link Plugin - that is wants the device On, and brightness set to 100%

The brightness is always there in my app use, testing - will check Siri now as well.

That is the issue, because if the brightness is sent we have to use it.
It could be ignored when light is First turned on - but then everyone who uses the dimmer slide from Off state will get the wrong brightness level.

& With Siri:
Siri turn On Hue Light

Code: Select all

   
HomeKitLink Siri Debug          (plugin.py:Plugin_setter_callback:1947): Char_Values [List] to Set: {'On': True}

And the light turns on to default Brightness 25% as wished/expected.

So either use Siri, or alternatively use the details screen for the bulk selecting 25%, or use on/off light switches.

I don't believe this behavior is different to previously.

Thanks

Glenn

[yassi]

OK, thanks Glenn.

Yassi