How does everyone use their hue lights or any other dimmable lights for that matter with SmartThings?
I have about 6 of them in my living room and would really like to set scenes based on color and brightness. I have one smart app that uses a virtual switch to set the color and brightness level, but they don’t shut off when I use a routine such as good night to turn things off. Because in the “things” section my hue lights aren’t registering as on.
Anyone?
For good nights! And bad nights… Hues are polled in 5 minutes period. Just FYI.
Goodnight in my case turns off all hues and dims 2 of them to 10%.
If it’s not working for you, pretend to reconfigure something and click done. While doing this look at your IDE live logging if it is showing the bulbs getting polled. Another option is just open hue connect in your mobile app, when it starts discovering bulbs… Wait a while and click’done. Check the IDE logging what happens. Another thing is that I use a specific time. Or you can test by manually triggering good night if it works at all.
In my case I am using a scene creator that triggers a virtual switch. So I have living room dim 15%. That’s a switch with 4 lights associated. So the good night routine doesn’t shut the scenes with off
Unless I am not understanding you, why do you need a virtual switch rather than a routine for GoodNights? The routine can be set to automatically trigger or you can trigger it manually. If you can specify your use case, we all can help you simplify things. For the time being forget what’s happening. Just specify the use case.
The virtual switch is for the light scene. So I have 2 hue lights, hue go and light strips. All set at a specific level I call a scene
Ok! I have 12 hues and family including hues, lighstrip and blooms out of 23 odd hue products. When good night routine triggers manually or automatically at a specific time, 10 of those goes totally off and 2 of which were on just drops to 10% and changes the mode to night without fail. This routine can be triggered manually or based on specific time blah blah. This is is the simplest configuration as shown above.!the colors and level will stick as it was before the routine. Question is what do with that virtual switch in here unless you use Alwxa darling to give you a good night kiss, Lucky devil! Or unless you are trying to piut various subsets of bulbs involved to different levels.
Yes. But how do you use the lights. You use smartthings to turn off each lights or do you use the hue app.
I want to press a button in my smartthings app and turn on a set of lights to relax and watch tv
//There are much intuitive ways of doing it. But I have kept it very simple.
Mine are all automated via Routines. And of course you can tap on these to trigger the routines. Add it as widgets if you use iOS. I do not use the hue app anymore as this integration is working well for me. I certainly use OnSwitch app when I get bored with the colors and change it via that. I turn on the light via ST. Change the color and turn it off via ST. The new colors will stick.
I could have gone with Smart Lights but well I needed a tap-able solution and hues are not local as such.
(You can have similar set up for all the rooms)
“All Lights On”: Triggers automatically at sunset with negative offset.
“All Lights Off”: Just there to turn of all lights. Seldom used.
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“Good Night!”: Turns off unnecessary lights and dims a few. Automatically at a specific time.
“Good Morning”: Turns off the hues used as night light and turns on hues in the living room.
I could do that as well. But I really want specific scenes with different levels for different lights. For instance…I want to watch TV. Set the Hue Strip lights around my TV to an amber color and 65% brightness. My Hue Go the same color and brightness. Then I have three more high hat lights that I want a soft white and set to 15% brightness. To me that is a scene. Currently I am using a smart app that creates that scene and associates those settings with a virtaul switch
Aah! Understood. My brain is frozen in the already cold Jersey today! 
No worries. I am in Long Island and feel the same way.
Back to my original problem…I dont mind using the SmartApp to trigger a virtual switch containing my different lights with different colors and brightness. This works fine for now and I am happy.
However, when I run a routine to shut my lights off when I go to bed or leave the house, etc, the lights do not turn off. I think this is a SMH issue. Your guess?
Does your virtual switch “off” do anything? Can your virtual switch turn off all those bulbs? And in your routine just turn off the virtual switch?
My virtual switch is a momentary button. Should I change it to something else?
A momentary button just processes pushed/on and then just waits like a doorbell like JD explained. What baffles me is how come your routine is not turning off the bulbs. I hope you are turning off the bulbs in your routine and not the momentary button.
A simulated(virtual) switch will process on/offs.
Yes. In my routine I am turning off the individual lights and not the button.
I had the same problem using any app but the smart lighting app. I don’t fully understand why but using the smart lighting app, my hue bulbs are flawless. Setting scenes is a real PITA, because you have create a rule for each group of colors not group of lights.
@keo remember the days we whined everyday about hue integration? And now ST made it probably the most solid integrtion. Weeks now with zero failure.
OMG Dude, I totally agree! The best thing is that my Family is happy again which makes me happy.
I have to see this for myself.
