I’m less than 24 hours into my ST experience and have purchased GE Link light bulbs, got them installed (in a 4 light ceiling fan in the kitchen) and connected. Since it’s on the ceiling I thought it would be a good starting point as the switch they are controlled by is not a dimmer. I can dim each bulb individually from the “Things” screen, but as soon as group them I lose that ability.
My questions are these:
Is this a common experience, or am I doing something wrong?
If common, Is this the expected behavior?
Short of nstalling a dimming switch is there no way to dim multiple bulbs at once?
Or, do other bulbs, such as Hue or TCP, allow dimming as a group?
I wrote a “dim with me” app a while back. I can’t remember if it’s on the user list. I’m out of the office right now so I can’t see if it is. I’ll post it tonight to ST if it’s not. You can Google for it and dl it from github too.
Anyway, it allows you to pick a master to which the chosen slaves will follow.
So if I understand correctly, I would install your Dim With Me app and create a virtual switch for ONE of the bulbs and choose the other three as slaves?
Is there a post/sticky that details how to install apps/device types?
You can use a real dimmer as a master or a virtual dimmer. I like to use a virtual dimmer due to the fact that some brands of dimmers take a while to report back their dimmer value. YMMV.
Just try it out and see what works best in your environment.
Let me finish my Martini and I’ll post the update.
What lines of code need to be edited to link the light bulbs? Do you use the display name or zigbee ID or some other identifier in the code to get them to work?
I think I have the smartapp installed correctly; however, I’m having trouble adding the virtual switch. What code do I put in My Device Types, and what code in My Devices? Do you have a readme?
Pick one of the bulbs to be a master. Then pick the others to be the slaves. Then try controlling the master on your phone. All the other bulbs should follow.
Like I said before, the master does not have to be a virtual one.
Try that first and then we’ll show you how to make a virtual device.
Apparently too many, because I couldn’t figure out this:
Just tried that now, but only the master dims. The other three bulbs remain at there setting.
As a recap my system involves four GE Link bulbs (Kitchen 1,2,3 & 4) in the light fixture portion of a ceiling fan. The lights and fan are on separate switches. I can dim all bulbs independently and I created a switch that will control them all - but only on or off.
After installing Dim With Me, here are the steps I did:
Press the large Plus button, move to My Apps and select Dim With Me.
Chose the Kitchen 1 bulb in the “When this… Master Dimmer Switch” box (Arrow turns green and name of light is in box).
Chose the remaining bulbs in the “And these will follow with dimming level…Slave Dimmer Switch(es)” box (again turns green and names appear).
Assigned a name
Clicked Done in the upper right corner
I can see the tile in “My Apps”, yet when I select Kitchen 1 from the “Things” tiles, it reacts to dimming but none of the others do. If I use check under the SmartApps tile the name I gave the Dim With Me app does appear - Kitchen Dim With Me as an installed app. The same is true of the other three lights.
No dice. Logged out, force closed, hard restarted the phone and then logged back in.
Here’s what I notice now though. The individual master bulb will respond from the Things tile through all levels of dimming. When I dim to off ALL the bulbs go off, so it appears that some of the functionality is getting to the other bulbs, just not the dimming part.
Maybe it’s something to do with the GE Link bulbs?
