I am new to SmartThings and home automation and having problems with my first switch. Of course, this isn’t helping me sell my family on the wonders of the connected home.
When I tap the top of switch to turn on the lights, they turn on as expected.
When I tap the bottom of the switch to turn off the lights, they fade off, but then are briefly at full brightness before turning off. This instant flash of light is unpleasant.
I had the switch installed by an electrician during a basement finishing project, so assuming was correct. This behavior existed before I even had it connected to the SmartThings hub. It is now connected to the hub, and the on/off behavior in the SmartThings app is the same as the physical switch.
So, how do I fix this? I would like on to turn on instantly and off to turn off instantly. Is this a hardware problem with the switch or something I can set. Something I can do on the switch itself, or something I need to code? I am a software developer so not afraid of a code based solution, but have never programmed anything on the hub.
I had a similar issue, wasn’t flashing but was noticeable stepping, almost stuttering. I am using the LED bulbs you get at Costco (Leit) and they work well, especially for the price. Nearly the same as the 3x more expensive GEs I have.
If you want instant on/off I would replace the switch with a GE on/off model (its not that hard). I do like the soft on/off of the dimmers that is why I have them on most my lights. You can use the custom device handler to program near instant on, but try a small ramp up.
Here is a direct link to the custom device handler. Let us know if you have questions
For clarity of my problem, I recorded a video of the “flashing” behavior and uploaded to YouTube: https://youtu.be/dU-kliv16fE
I would love a way for the “off” and “on” to be instant, but still allow for the push and hold step level dimming. However, I am OK with fade on/fade off as long as I can get ride of the “flash” effect at the end of the fade off.
Amazon/Lowes says the bulb is dimmable to 10%. Anything below that will cause it to freak out, and most likely that is what you are seeing. The dimmer steps down 1% at a time.
On/Off instant while retaining dimmable from the switch is not possible.
Options:
Go with an on/off switch
Use different bulbs
Try tweaking the dim rate with Enhanced Dimmer (10% steps, delay of 10) which will ramp the light up and down in about a second, delay of 5 is about half a second. May remove the flicker. May need to try different settings.
That “dimmable to 10%” was the clue I needed. I used the percentage slider in the iOS app, and at 12% the bulbs are dim, but when at 10% they are at full brightness.
I am using your Enhanced Dimmer and playing with the step and delay settings, but haven’t found the right combination yet. Thanks for publishing that. I will reply back once I find my solution.
Using Ben’s Enhanced Dimmer, I set the step to 20% which keeps the bulbs from dropping below the ~10% “freak out” zone. I can still use the app slider for more precise control. I wish it could be more gradual, but unless I want to buy different LED bulbs, this seems like the best option.
manualStepDuration number 30
manualStepSize number 20
stepDuration number 30
stepSize number 20
You can always move these leds to another location (assuming you have other floods not led) and try different bulbs. I had to go through 3 or 4 different Led bulbs till I found ones I liked and at a price point that didn’t kill me. Had nearly 50 Flood lights I needed to upgrade to Led, from incandescent.
Any feedback on the device handler? I am hoping to submit it to official review soon.
I have a different problem with my GE (12724). I have them connected to a bunch of Commercial Electric LED trims (see below). When I power them on after they haven’t been powered on for awhile, they tend to flash dimly and then eventually come on after like 10-15 seconds except one of them which takes like 30 seconds. It’s almost as if they go into some sort of sleep mode. At first, I had the first gen 12724 without the neutral wire which doesn’t work with LED’s, but then I swapped it out with a new 12724 (which does work with LED’s) but the problem persists. What is strange is, I have the same setup in 2 other rooms and I do not have this issue. I just setup @desertblade’s Enhanced Device Type and played around with the settings, but didn’t seem to help. The CE trims are only certified to work with certain dimmers and GE isn’t on the list.
What I did notice helped was turning them on at 30% dim (as opposed to the 10% set level they were on last). I believe that might be the fix, but need to do more testing.
I will have to look when I get home. I actually realized it’s 3 other rooms I have this setup in and I believe I have 6 lights in some of those rooms too. I’ve seen very rarely an issue in those rooms, so I can’t say it’s 100% perfect, but not as problematic as my living room.
I have same amount of lights in other rooms. I think it has to do with the fact when I power on the lights, it start at 10%. Do you know a way to fix this?
I am not sure if the device type is working properly for me. Even if I set it at 50, when I power up the lights via ST Mobile app, it still goes to 10%. See below.
ST can still set the dimmer to whatever you want to set it too. The steps are just the jumps up it takes at a time. The switch also remembers last dim state so its probably defaulting to that.
I am new to ST. Could you please walk me thru on how to setup Enhanced Dimmer. How do I download it and link it to my ST to be able to get rid of this flash when turning off.
