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Different light levels at night


slevittmd

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My dealer has programmed many of my keypad buttons through connections, which I obviously can’t change. However, I’d like some of them to come on to different levels at night, such as full brightness on that particular load if button pressed during the day, but 50% brightness if after sunset.

Is that something I can program with home composed, or something the dealer would have to do? Basically, don’t know if I can somehow program the system to do something different with the connections the dealer already made.

 

Also, my dealer has mentioned that he could convert all the connections that control dimmers/keypads to programming, so I’d be able to see and edit everything. Any disadvantage to doing this?

 

 

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Sounds like he has the keypad buttons bound to the scenes, he can change it to the programing section instead of connections then you can edit them afterwards

Is there any reason I wouldn’t want him to do that? If not, why don’t dealers just program them that way to begin with?


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Binding them gives a much quicker response time than programming although you can get almost the same if you use on press instead of on single click.

Binding is also quicker and easier for the dealer to set up and change.

I have my lights bound and then use a double click to set 50% brightness (can be done in HE).  The only problem with this approach is that they come on at full brightness and then dim to 50% when your controller realizes you have done a double click.  You can get around this by setting the ramp up rate to the light to a good few seconds.

You could program the level to be set (based on time) when the light comes on in HE and leave the bindings in place. The same problem and work around described above would apply.

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If it's individual, single LOADS that they are triggering, you can program a schedule to change the default on levels using the the PRESET_LEVEL variable. This will mean that a single button push will take it to that % - press and hold can force it past the preset level. This wouldn't work if the buttons are triggering scenes though as scenes set the level directly.

Alternatively you can also program the MAX ON level on a schedule - this will BLOCK the light from going higher completely however- so if you set it to 50%, it will NOT go above that no matter what. That said, you COULD change the max on level for multiple lights in a scene and maintain the button binding.

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  • 2 months later...

I have a Welcome button programmed on my keypad dimmer just inside the door from my garage, and I have a Welcome Day scene and a Welcome Night scene. Whenever I come home, I press the Welcome button. During the day, the Welcome Day scene comes on, but if it's at night, the Welcome Night scene is activated, which turns the lights on at a much lower level. Unfortunately, I didn't program this, but my dealer told me that the dimmer itself has a sensor and can tell if it's day or night and activates the correct Welcome scene automatically. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

On a related note - is there any way to see in Composer HE that a button on a keypad has a binding from a light?  Binding makes things easier but I find it annoying from an end-user perspective as I don't have any control over it in HE.

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8 minutes ago, zaphod said:

On a related note - is there any way to see in Composer HE that a button on a keypad has a binding from a light?  Binding makes things easier but I find it annoying from an end-user perspective as I don't have any control over it in HE.

Unfortunately no.

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On 14/12/2017 at 3:40 PM, zaphod said:

On a related note - is there any way to see in Composer HE that a button on a keypad has a binding from a light?  Binding makes things easier but I find it annoying from an end-user perspective as I don't have any control over it in HE.

I second this. It’s really frustrating that I don’t know what’s bonded to what! Using Pro, is there anyway my dealer would be able to easily export the button bindings for example?

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5 hours ago, Shivam Paw said:

I second this. It’s really frustrating that I don’t know what’s bonded to what! Using Pro, is there anyway my dealer would be able to easily export the button bindings for example?

Yes, there's built-in tools for that.

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One useful suggestion that someone gave me is to create an IsDark boolean variable.  You can turn this on at Sunset and turn it off at Sunrise.  This can be useful for what you are trying to do, and I use it for some lights that are turned on by motion sensors.

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Or...use IF Nighttime and IF daytime built into the scheduler
So I have detached garages that are connected to the house via a breezeway. I recently programmed in HE to turn the lights in the breezeway on when the garage door opens, and to turn the lights off when the garage door closes. Is there a way to program it for nighttime only? That's only when I need the lights to operate.

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2 hours ago, Anzir said:

So I have detached garages that are connected to the house via a breezeway. I recently programmed in HE to turn the lights in the breezeway on when the garage door opens, and to turn the lights off when the garage door closes. Is there a way to program it for nighttime only? That's only when I need the lights to operate.

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Sure.
 

WHEN garage door opens
IF time is nighttime [on the right hand side under actions scroll down to scheduler and select the actual agent]
  Turn on garage lights

I'd leave the 'off' without the IF statement myself but you could do the same there.

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On 12/18/2017 at 1:22 AM, Cyknight said:

Or...use IF Nighttime and IF daytime built into the scheduler

How are these defined?  Are they set at sunset or sunrise, or do they use deltas?  And can you change the deltas?

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They use base sunset and sunrise.

 

So yes, if you want to be very specific you'd do something along the lines of what you do where you can use things like minutes before after etc.

For something as simple as a light going on or off in a garage when it's 'night' only it's a lot less hassle though.

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Sure.
 
WHEN garage door opensIF time is nighttime [on the right hand side under actions scroll down to scheduler and select the actual agent] Turn on garage lights

I'd leave the 'off' without the IF statement myself but you could do the same there.

Thanks, I'll try that out tonight!

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Back to the different light levels, I am trying to program this in my bathroom by activating different light scenes based on the time of day and I get the if particular time activate certain scene but how do I program to turn off. I don't have buttons for room off and are currently setup to toggle scene.

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