GE / Lasco Dimmer Switch Won't Dim in SmartApp Action

SmartApps & Automations
1

Hello all,
I am having some trouble with the GE dimmer switch not coming on at the set dimness setting in my smartapp (turn on at 6am daily). I have tried deleting and re-doing the smartapp a couple of times and it always comes back on at full brightness. The time on and off portions of the smartapps work fine otherwise. FYI, I also have a smartapp to turn the light on at full light when someone comes home (presence of smartphone) and that works fine. I can also manually and in app change the dimness.

I searched and can’t find anything, and the blue box “similar to” can’t get me what I need (although I love this feature. Can anyone help?

2

Are you using a published SmartApp, someone else’s code, or writing your own SmartApp?

3

I’m using the smart setup - >actions - > lighting - >turn light on at scheduled time app.

Another thing I just noticed is that when the light came on when I got home (presence), it came on dimmed as I had last left it. I think I might have read something about that, but can’t find it now

4

I just tried to reproduce the setup on my end and everything worked as expected. I set the lights to dim to 50% a few minutes from the present time and they did exactly that.

Screenshot_2015-01-13-22-27-12.png1080Ă—1920 168 KB

Have you tried setting the timer to occur sometime in the near future (eg. a few minutes later) so you can watch what’s happening? And have you checked the Activity Feed? I’m curious if your presence might be losing connection or something else might be interacting with the lights?

5

Thanks for your help Joshua. This morning it came on at the right time it the dimness state it was last turned on at (not the setting in the app). Checking the activity feed, it doesn’t show the activity of turning the light on or off.

I also wonder if there is an interaction issue. When the presence-based app does it’s job, it doesn’t make the light full brightness like it’s supposed to so either. It turns brightness on to last state. I still can’t find the thread, but I remember reading that there might be an issue that the smartapp might be written to where it doesn’t interact with the “setlevel” on the ge/jasco dimmers right? Is it possible I didn’t pair the right ge/jasco dimmer switch? There were a couple of choices,

Can you run one more test for me please? Can you make another app that tells it to turn the light on to a different brightness just a minute or two after your 50% app turns on and off?

Thanks again.

6

I’ll try to remember to try it out tonight when I’m back at the house. I should note that the switches I was testing against were Intermatic dimmers. I would be surprised if the GE Jasco switches are that different from the Intermatics as usually dimmable lights call the setLevel(level, duration) command where level is the percentage to dim to and duration is the period to dim over.

The caveat I’ve seen to this is many devices don’t handle a duration, but you still have to set the value. Whether the value is set to 0 or 30, the lights that don’t support the duration parameter seem to dim on immediately. If I remember correctly, if the value is set too high, like 999, the command will fail. That being said, it looks like the dimming works in general, so I don’t see the duration being an issue.

7

I’d appreciate you looking into it. One question in the meantime - Is it possible to review (debug?) these apps on the ide? Maybe if I look at it I’ll see something.

8

Yes, the Live Logging feature in the IDE is good and can be helpful in diagnosing these issues.

Ninja edit: Support can also be helpful in solving these issues. The live chat team is usually available during normal business hours (in the bottom right of the linked page).

9

I just changed the execute time from 6:15am to 1:15pm and watched the log (see below). I don’t see an action to change the brightness from 55% to 20%. What am I missing here?

4fa4a49b-6c56-4c1c-b510-f20570e2a467 1:15:49 PM: debug getChildDevices(true), children=1
2c37aa89-eb19-40b5-a2c2-632ee745b0ca 1:15:20 PM: trace Getting solution event data for switchState:on
69d101be-a2cc-4e63-89b1-43407a1f9f54 1:15:20 PM: trace Getting solution event data for switchState:on
2c37aa89-eb19-40b5-a2c2-632ee745b0ca 1:15:20 PM: debug EVENT: Arrival Entry Light is on
69d101be-a2cc-4e63-89b1-43407a1f9f54 1:15:20 PM: debug EVENT: Morning Light On is on
2c37aa89-eb19-40b5-a2c2-632ee745b0ca 1:15:20 PM: trace setSolutionEvent()
69d101be-a2cc-4e63-89b1-43407a1f9f54 1:15:20 PM: trace setSolutionEvent()
c47742c0-e429-42c1-b55c-63767f943bee 1:15:20 PM: trace Getting solution event data for switchState:on
2c37aa89-eb19-40b5-a2c2-632ee745b0ca 1:15:20 PM: info SUMMARY EVENT data: [[icon:indicator-dot-green, iconColor:#49a201, default:true, value:All lights are on]]
c47742c0-e429-42c1-b55c-63767f943bee 1:15:20 PM: debug EVENT: Morning Light Off is on
69d101be-a2cc-4e63-89b1-43407a1f9f54 1:15:20 PM: info SUMMARY EVENT data: [[icon:indicator-dot-green, iconColor:#49a201, default:true, value:All lights are on]]
c47742c0-e429-42c1-b55c-63767f943bee 1:15:20 PM: trace setSolutionEvent()
2c37aa89-eb19-40b5-a2c2-632ee745b0ca 1:15:20 PM: trace state data of Lights & Switches: {“devices”:[{“id”:“b9fd4422-3f82-4aeb-af00-bddc4319346a”,“value”:“on”}],“name”:“on”,“value”:“on”,“backgroundColor”:"#79b821",“icon”:“st.Lighting.light13-icn”,“unixTime”:1421270120132}
69d101be-a2cc-4e63-89b1-43407a1f9f54 1:15:20 PM: trace state data of Lights & Switches: {“devices”:[{“id”:“b9fd4422-3f82-4aeb-af00-bddc4319346a”,“value”:“on”}],“name”:“on”,“value”:“on”,“backgroundColor”:"#79b821",“icon”:“st.Lighting.light13-icn”,“unixTime”:1421270120132}
c47742c0-e429-42c1-b55c-63767f943bee 1:15:20 PM: info SUMMARY EVENT data: [[icon:indicator-dot-orange, iconColor:#49a201, default:true, value:Some lights are on]]
69d101be-a2cc-4e63-89b1-43407a1f9f54 1:15:20 PM: trace states of Lights & Switches: [state: on]
2c37aa89-eb19-40b5-a2c2-632ee745b0ca 1:15:20 PM: trace states of Lights & Switches: [state: on]
c47742c0-e429-42c1-b55c-63767f943bee 1:15:20 PM: trace state data of Lights & Switches: {“devices”:[{“id”:“b9fd4422-3f82-4aeb-af00-bddc4319346a”,“value”:“off”}],“name”:“off”,“value”:“off”,“backgroundColor”:"#e8e9eb",“icon”:“st.Lighting.light13-icn”,“unixTime”:1421269942295}
69d101be-a2cc-4e63-89b1-43407a1f9f54 1:15:20 PM: trace state data of Lights & Switches: {“devices”:[{“id”:“b9fd4422-3f82-4aeb-af00-bddc4319346a”,“value”:“on”}],“name”:“on”,“value”:“on”,“backgroundColor”:"#79b821",“icon”:“st.Lighting.light19”,“unixTime”:1421270120142}
2c37aa89-eb19-40b5-a2c2-632ee745b0ca 1:15:20 PM: trace state data of Lights & Switches: {“devices”:[{“id”:“b9fd4422-3f82-4aeb-af00-bddc4319346a”,“value”:“on”}],“name”:“on”,“value”:“on”,“backgroundColor”:"#79b821",“icon”:“st.Lighting.light19”,“unixTime”:1421270120142}
c47742c0-e429-42c1-b55c-63767f943bee 1:15:20 PM: trace states of Lights & Switches: [state: off]
69d101be-a2cc-4e63-89b1-43407a1f9f54 1:15:20 PM: trace states of Lights & Switches: [state: on]
2c37aa89-eb19-40b5-a2c2-632ee745b0ca 1:15:20 PM: trace states of Lights & Switches: [state: on]
c47742c0-e429-42c1-b55c-63767f943bee 1:15:20 PM: trace state data of Lights & Switches: {“devices”:[{“id”:“b9fd4422-3f82-4aeb-af00-bddc4319346a”,“value”:“off”}],“name”:“off”,“value”:“off”,“backgroundColor”:"#e8e9eb",“icon”:“st.Lighting.light19”,“unixTime”:1421269942346}
2c37aa89-eb19-40b5-a2c2-632ee745b0ca 1:15:20 PM: trace state data of Lights & Switches: {“devices”:[{“id”:“b9fd4422-3f82-4aeb-af00-bddc4319346a”,“value”:“on”}],“name”:“on”,“value”:“on”,“backgroundColor”:"#79b821",“icon”:“st.Lighting.light13-icn”,“unixTime”:1421270120108}
69d101be-a2cc-4e63-89b1-43407a1f9f54 1:15:20 PM: trace state data of Lights & Switches: {“devices”:[{“id”:“b9fd4422-3f82-4aeb-af00-bddc4319346a”,“value”:“on”}],“name”:“on”,“value”:“on”,“backgroundColor”:"#79b821",“icon”:“st.Lighting.light13-icn”,“unixTime”:1421270120108}
c47742c0-e429-42c1-b55c-63767f943bee 1:15:20 PM: trace states of Lights & Switches: [state: off]
2c37aa89-eb19-40b5-a2c2-632ee745b0ca 1:15:20 PM: trace states of Lights & Switches: [state: on]
69d101be-a2cc-4e63-89b1-43407a1f9f54 1:15:20 PM: trace states of Lights & Switches: [state: on]
c47742c0-e429-42c1-b55c-63767f943bee 1:15:20 PM: trace state data of Lights & Switches: {“devices”:[{“id”:“b9fd4422-3f82-4aeb-af00-bddc4319346a”,“value”:“on”}],“name”:“on”,“value”:“on”,“backgroundColor”:"#79b821",“icon”:“st.Lighting.light13-icn”,“unixTime”:1421270120108}
2c37aa89-eb19-40b5-a2c2-632ee745b0ca 1:15:20 PM: debug STATE EVENT: Arrival Entry Light is on, data:[devices:[[id:b9fd4422-3f82-4aeb-af00-bddc4319346a, value:on]], name:on, value:on, backgroundColor:#79b821, icon:st.Lighting.light19, unixTime:1421270120142]
69d101be-a2cc-4e63-89b1-43407a1f9f54 1:15:20 PM: debug STATE EVENT: Morning Light On is on, data:[devices:[[id:b9fd4422-3f82-4aeb-af00-bddc4319346a, value:on]], name:on, value:on, backgroundColor:#79b821, icon:st.Lighting.light13-icn, unixTime:1421270120132]
c47742c0-e429-42c1-b55c-63767f943bee 1:15:20 PM: trace states of Lights & Switches: [state: on]
2c37aa89-eb19-40b5-a2c2-632ee745b0ca 1:15:20 PM: trace getSolutionStateData()
69d101be-a2cc-4e63-89b1-43407a1f9f54 1:15:20 PM: trace getSolutionStateData()
c47742c0-e429-42c1-b55c-63767f943bee 1:15:20 PM: debug STATE EVENT: Morning Light Off is on, data:[devices:[[id:b9fd4422-3f82-4aeb-af00-bddc4319346a, value:on]], name:on, value:on, backgroundColor:#79b821, icon:st.Lighting.light13-icn, unixTime:1421270120108]
2c37aa89-eb19-40b5-a2c2-632ee745b0ca 1:15:20 PM: debug setSolutionState()
69d101be-a2cc-4e63-89b1-43407a1f9f54 1:15:20 PM: debug setSolutionState()
c47742c0-e429-42c1-b55c-63767f943bee 1:15:20 PM: trace getSolutionStateData()
2c37aa89-eb19-40b5-a2c2-632ee745b0ca 1:15:20 PM: debug switchHandler(Entry Light Switch, switch:on)
69d101be-a2cc-4e63-89b1-43407a1f9f54 1:15:20 PM: debug switchHandler(Entry Light Switch, switch:on)
c47742c0-e429-42c1-b55c-63767f943bee 1:15:20 PM: debug setSolutionState()
c47742c0-e429-42c1-b55c-63767f943bee 1:15:20 PM: debug switchHandler(Entry Light Switch, switch:on)
b9fd4422-3f82-4aeb-af00-bddc4319346a 1:15:19 PM: debug Parse returned [Entry Light Switch is on, Entry Light Switch dimmed 55 %]
00b0a5c8-b7c1-49db-857d-447b5d75b18e

10

Just to give an update, it looks like this is a bug between the GE Jasco switches and ST. It doesn’t handle the dim level command right currently. I talked to Aaron in ST customer service and they’re working on it. I’ll update the thread when I have an update.

@joshua_lyon - How do you like your Intermatic switch? Does it do everything you want?

1 Like
11

My ge switches suffer from this bug also. I must send the dimming command twice to have the lights dim properly. Looking forward to hearing the solution.

12

Has ST come up with a solution for this yet?

13

I don’t think so. I bring it up every time I communicate with ST staff and can’t even get a consistent answer on whether they acknowledge the issue.

14

I can say with 100% certainty that is ST. Before purchasing ST I had a VeraEdge and dimming was not an issue with the GE/Jasco switches. This is what a common consumer would think and I do not see it as an unreasonable request. Plus I would imagine that the GE/Jasco switch are fairly popular. Maybe not top of line but used by many. It is rather frustrating to waking up in the middle of the night for, well you can take a guess, and getting blasted by your bedroom and bathroom lights.

15

Any comments you can make @Ben ?

16

Anyone having any luck with getting this corrected?

17

Bumping… have same issue with GE switches. Using ST lighting app, I have the GE switches set to come on at 30% when in Night mode. ST refuses to cooperate, and instead throw a blinding 100% light at me.

18

Same here. Was told it was going to be fixed months ago but never happened. It is my understanding the Rule Machine smartapp will set level correctly. I am going to give this a shot over weekend and see if that works.

19

Bumping 1 more time before I try rule machine.

20

I have started using Rule Machine as a work around. Rule Machine probably will be my long term solution to this since ST cannot get this right. Rule Machine is pretty awesome!