Hey,
I asked myself while creating a routine for a bulb: why is there no possibility in smart things to press and hold a button, for example the control panel of a light bulb. And then the light bulb goes (for example) +5 up in brightness per second so I can have a dimmer. I’m not from the tech industry, so please explain to me why that won’t work if so.
Thanks and regards
I think @mocelet would love to explain it. (I’m too tired…)
Basically: this was added quite recently. Matter lights were the first to make use of this (“step level”) feature. IKEA BILRESA Scroll Wheels and some other devices can be used as a dimmer. The SmartThings app itself doesn’t reflect it as of now.
Deja vue my friend…
With smartthings and last transition to EDGE everything is possible…
Unfortunly due the lack of smartthings support, for noobs like me and the protocols adopted by the team, you only can advance on this plattform with the charity of somes independents developers…
Resuming…
You can do it…
But you need 2 drivers with level step capibility. The button driver and the device driver need to include that capility…
I’m on same boat…
Sometimes we need to use 3 drivers… The button driver with this capibility, the generic driver for the device light and a virtual device with this capibility that make the magic… Check “Tapiox” and “Mocelet” drivers… Together they resolve your/my issue. They save my ass and make me still on Smartthings plattform… They should be “payed” for help the community…
Now, i’m counting with “Wonjj” to get rid of my virtual link devices…
Check too his drivers… He’s active and open to help you…
But, first tell us what button and what device light you want use… Maby already exist a custom driver for that or with luck, last recently smartthings updates do the job…
If you still using yeelight/Xiaomi devices:
That’s a recurring use case that smart home platforms haven’t nailed yet.
SmartThings recently added an Adjust brightness routine action for, at least, Zigbee and Matter lights, but it’s not available for every light in SmartThings for whatever strange reason. That allows to increase the brightness that 5% once.
Check if your lights have the Adjust Brightness action when creating a routine. Will make your life easier. If it’s not there I would kindly ask SmartThings to add it or, if using a custom driver, the developer.
Since you want to keep increasing that 5% while a button is Held, you’ll need a driver for your smart button that supports auto-repeat Held or other workarounds. My drivers for IKEA buttons all support auto-repeating the Held when technically possible so you just enable the auto-repeat and in the Held action just select the Adjust Brightness 5% of the light for one button and -5% for the other button. That will repeat the action until you release the button.
That’s the most simple way.
If your lights don’t have the Adjust brightness action yet then use the Virtual Dimmer mentioned before. If your button does not have auto-repeat Held but has the release event you might use the Virtual Scene Switcher but that’s going to be more cumbersome and SmartThings stock drivers don’t have the release event, again for whatever strange reason.
Thank you very much for these answers!! I get it now