Slowly dim a light.

[wpiman]

I am looking to have an event that slowly Dims our kids likes. Say 1% ever 10 seconds. I could use a straight event starting at 100% but I want the event to start where the light was set to last and keep going down to zero. Ideas?

[Michael McSharry]

mcsHubitat, mcsShelly and mcsMQTT does this for the devices they interface. For others I suggest launching a script that has logic to read the device’s value and then loops with one second delay in loop to command the light to a decrementing value.

[jmaddox]

Here is a starting point. I wrote this script to use an HS switch/dimmer to control another dimmable zwave device that wasn't directly connected to the switch/dimmer's load. Its meant to be called by an event when a switch/dimmer is pressed and held either up or down, I had one event for each. You'd probably want to strip out the logic that sets keyreleased to 1001 or 2001 and likely include both for your local switch escape/cancel. If you didn't want to have a way to cancel the event locally you could strip out quite a bit.

Imports System.Threading, System.Convert
Public Sub Main(ByVal Parms As Object)
'' This script should be called when a central scene is set to "held down"
'' it dims A dimmable device either up Or down until the central scene becomes "key released" or the load hits 99 or 0
'' Parameters '<device ref #>|<device ref central scene #>|up|<dimrate>' or '<device ref #>|<device ref central scene #>|down|<dimrate>'
'' ie: 79|78|up|10

Dim ParmArray() As String
ParmArray = Parms.ToString.Split(ToChar("|"))

Dim DeviceRef As Integer = Integer.Parse(ParmArray(0))
Dim DeviceValue As Integer = hs.DeviceValue(DeviceRef)
Dim DeviceRefCS As Integer = Integer.Parse(ParmArray(1))
Dim DeviceValueCS As Integer
Dim Keyreleased As Integer = 1001

Dim UpDown As String = ParmArray(2)

'' DimStep is the increment value for each dim setting
Dim DimStep As Integer = 3

If UpDown = "down" Then DimStep = DimStep * -1
If UpDown = "down" Then Keyreleased = 2001

'' DimRate is how long to take between dim levels; ie the rate of dimming in milliseconds
Dim DimRate As Integer = Integer.Parse(ParmArray(3))


For value As Integer = 0 To 100

'' increment the dim% value then set min and max values
DeviceValue = DeviceValue + DimStep
If DeviceValue > 99 Then DeviceValue = 99
If DeviceValue < 0 Then DeviceValue = 0

'' set the device to the current value
Dim cc As HomeSeerAPI.CAPIControl = hs.CAPIGetSingleControl(DeviceRef, True, "Dim (value)%", False, False)
cc.ControlValue = DeviceValue
Dim cr As HomeSeerAPI.CAPIControlResponse = hs.CAPIControlHandler(cc)

'' get current central scene value
DeviceValueCS = hs.DeviceValue(DeviceRefCS)

'' check to see if we should exit the loop
If DeviceValue = 0 Or DeviceValue = 99 Or DeviceValueCS = Keyreleased Then Exit Sub

Thread.Sleep(DimRate)
Next

End Sub

[Grundcm]

If scripting is not your thing, Just create a virtual device called something like "Dimming enabled" that is on/off.

Then just use an event that runs every 10 seconds and if Dimming enabled is on then set Light level at Light level-1 (using easy trigger)

Probably do another event to turn the Dimming enabled off once the light is off

[wpiman]

Here is a starting point. I wrote this script to use an HS switch/dimmer to control another dimmable zwave device that wasn't directly connected to the switch/dimmer's load. Its meant to be called by an event when a switch/dimmer is pressed and held either up or down, I had one event for each. You'd probably want to strip out the logic that sets keyreleased to 1001 or 2001 and likely include both for your local switch escape/cancel. If you didn't want to have a way to cancel the event locally you could strip out quite a bit.

Thanks! That works perfectly! Originally, I was hoping to avoid scripting because I have never been happy with the way HS does it. I've always just wrote scripts and run them in HS and debugging was a nightmare.

But when researching your script I can across tenscriptings interface with Visual Studio and LOVED it. Can insert break points, kill dead script: basically a real coding and debug environment. It took me 10 minutes to modify your script and a day to get the coding environment set up-- but I love it now.

Other than the fact I am running it on Windows and it doesn't support a VI mode I am pretty happy. If I can run it on my Mac I would be thrilled.

[jvm]

For Z-Wave dimmers, I think you *should* be able to do this simply by sending a new ramp rate configuration command at the start of the event and then resetting it at the end, as shown below. But for some reason, I can't get this to work - it seems the device isn't accepting the parameter change. Anybody see a fault in the method here?

[Wade]

For Z-Wave dimmers, I think you *should* be able to do this simply by sending a new ramp rate configuration command at the start of the event and then resetting it at the end, as shown below. But for some reason, I can't get this to work - it seems the device isn't accepting the parameter change. Anybody see a fault in the method here?

I wonder if it needs some delay between actions? Maybe 1 sec wait after the first parameter set and then long enough to allow the dim action to complete before the second parameter set.