Better Dimmer Device

General Discussion
1

I was getting so pee’od at the vertical slider for dimmers, I decided to make my own device for dimmers. Here is the current detail UI.

It contains the following:

  1. Main Tile, toggles on and off
  2. Top right, button for raising the level (by user defined increment, see Preferences tile)
  3. Next down, button for lowering the level (same as above note)
  4. Below main, Horizontal slider for controlling dimmer level.
  5. To the right of slider, value tile for showing current level value in percentage (1-100%)
  6. Below slider, Preferences tile to set the step value for when the user pushes on the raise or lower buttons
  7. Standard tiles (depending on your device platform)

Let me know what you think (critique welcome)
Twack

3 Likes
2

Nicely done @wackware!

Bummer that you can’t share device types on the system.

3

Here it is in action:

4

Here is the video of the finished device type. A thanks go out to @megapixel for helping me with some issues on Android. Let me know what you guys/gals think.

2 Likes
5

Can you please share device type code ?

6

Here you go:

Use the “dim with me” to get best mileage. You can find that at:

Enjoy and Happy Hacking!

Twack

7

@twack What do i need to to set this up? What capabilities do i need to specify for the New Device Type?

8

Polling,
Refresh,
Switch,
Switch Level

9

@twack, I wish ST could afford to hire a guy like you :wink:

10

@twack thanks for the code. I have GE wave switch , I change device type to your device , the switch does not turn on/off light. Am I missing something ? In the code I do not see that any wave messages being sent.

11

This is a virtual device. It can’t control something directly. Install the “Dim with Me” App. And choose the virtual dimmer for the master and choose your actual physical dimmers as slaves. What’s really cool is that all the dimmers you choose will follow the settings of the virtual dimmer. Even in an App.

12

Thanks @twack, I was able to get it to work. The numeric value wasn’t populating in the Virtual dimmer though. I like these version of the dimmer quite a bit.

13

Try getting all the way out of ST, make sure it’s not running in the background, and restart. That usually clears up the value tile issue. They’re a little flaky Sometimes.

Enjoy and have a great day!
Twack

14

Closing the app completely and reopening it worked.

Thanks.

15

would this slider work with t-Stats device types?

16

Worked nicely, thanks for sharing the code.

I just installed my first dimmer, and the first thing I thought was “why in the world would the slider be located like that when that gesture would scroll the screen?”. I have pretty fat fingers, so forget about trying to move that stupid thing up…

Yours is the way the ST dimmer device should be right within ST.

Thanks again!

  • JC
17

@sastozki,

Yes it would.

18

@twack would it be possible to combine these tile layouts into the Dimmer Switch device type so it wouldn’t have to be a virtual switch? Or is there more to it than just that?

19

I installed this and have it somewhat working. The slider will control the brightness, but the buttons up and down do nothing. Did I miss something?

20

Nevermind, I’m a moron and fat fingered the custom attributes. All is working now. Very very nice, wish SmartThings would add this in as the default for dimmers! Maybe even add it to the Thermostats! @urman have you seen this?! :slight_smile: