I’m looking for a method to manually trigger a lighting scene. Basically, separate scenes for reading, watching TV, listening to music, playing games…different activities that may occur within one room. I understand the intended purpose of Smartthings is automation, and I really like it. I’m not sure Smartthings will ever directly address this common and simple need that isn’t “direct” automation.
I think I’ve read every thread and tried every smartapp…overly complex for a simple task. What are the odds of using an Aeon Minimote to trigger IFTTT, to call a Hue scene? Just thinking…
IFTTT doesn’t have the button press available as a trigger for SmartThings.
IFTTT doesn’t have Scene available as an action for Hue.
What you can do is use Rule Machine to re-create the Scenes from Hue in SmartThings with a Rule for button 1, a Rule for button 2, etc by setting the color and dimmer level for the various bulbs.
If you do want to use IFTTT, you would need to create virtual switches in SmartThings that get turned on when you press a button on the minimote. You would then need to set up IFTTT Recipes using that virtual switch as the trigger and Change Color as the Action for Hue (note this will only do All Lights or a specific individual light so if you are wanting to change 3 in a room to make a scene, you’ll need 3 recipes set up to do this).
Do you mean use a single button to “toggle” the light scene? Like turn press button 1 to turn on lights, press button 1 again to turn the same lights off.
I could probably implement that in the app. I’m trying to think of the best way. I could check the current state of all the lights and inverse them. All the lights that are on would turn off and visa versa. Or, I could check the first light in the group and control the scene based on the first light. If the first light is on turn the scene off. If the first light is off turn the scene on.
@diehllane You could also mow your lawn with a pair of scissors . . . but. I’m joking, I love Rule Machine, but just because it can do something, doesn’t mean it is the best at doing something. Setting up lighting scenes in Rule Machine like those you can create in my app would actually be pretty tedious. For example, say you have six hue bulbs in a scene. You want to make sure two of them are white, dimmed 30%, two are green at 50%, and two are blue at 40%. Piece of cake with my app, but it would take significant effort in Rule Machine.
@JWC I have modified my SmartApp to allow you to toggle scenes. I concluded that the best way to do it was to keep track of the last scene (button) pressed, and the last state (on or off) chosen. If you press button 1 it will turn the lights on. If you press button 1 again (without pressing any of the other buttons) it will turn those lights off. Let me know what you think and if you have any questions.
Just curious as I do have a minimote I could use for something like this.
You mentioned [quote=“erocm1231, post:10, topic:35219”]
without pressing any of the other buttons
[/quote]
What happens if I have button 1 for my living room scene and button 2 for my hallway and bathroom scene, but I want to turn on the hallway and bathroom scene before shutting off the living room so it isn’t completely dark. Is this not possible with the way it is set up?
Nope, that is not how it currently works. This app will probably cover 90%+ of use cases, but there will for sure be some outliers.
You could have easily accomplish what you want except for choosing the order of having scene 2 turn on before turning scene 1 off.
Also of note, my app has some advanced debouncing techniques (mostly for the Enerwave ZWN-SC7) to prevent double toggles from occurring. I don’t know of any other apps that implement this.
I’m joking, I love Rule Machine, but just because it can do something, doesn’t mean it is the best at doing something. Setting up lighting scenes in Rule Machine like those you can create in my app would actually be pretty tedious. For example, say you have six hue bulbs in a scene. You want to make sure two of them are white, dimmed 30%, two are green at 50%, and two are blue at 40%. Piece of cake with my app, but it would take significant effort in Rule Machine.