Is there a SmartApp to create and trigger lighting scenes?

SmartApps & Automations
1

Maybe I’m not finding it because SmartThings uses different terminology than “scene”, but here’s is what I’m searching for. A SmartApp where I can:

  • select a subset of my lights and settings (on/off/dimming brightness) for each selected one
  • touch to set all the lights to the programmed settings.

e.g. Create a scene for “Watch Movies”, select lights to turn off and dim. Touch the app and the lights go down.

I should be able to instantiate it multiple times, one for each lighting scene. For extra credit, it should be able to trigger the scene from a switch.

This seems like something so common that I was sure I was an idiot for not finding it…so can someone point out my idiocy please?

Thanks!

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2

Yup … Do a Topic Search for “Scene Machine” (c/o @wackware) … I think it is currently the best option out there and it matches your description really closely.

You may need to scroll down in the Topic thread to find a link to the latest shared SmartApp code.

If it doesn’t quite do what you want, a bunch of us are really “into” Scenes and love collecting ideas and requirements to write similar SmartApps or enhance the existing ones.

You can do a lot with “Hello Home Actions”, but there’s a bit of a (healthy!) debate on the Community as to whether or not that is the most straightforward way of handling this “classic / traditional” concept of Scenes!

Good-luck … lots of us here to help!
…CP / Terry.

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3

Thanks Terry. I did see Scene Machine somewhere in my search, but it seemed to be more about recording a scene. I thought maybe there would be something native to SmartThings (in other words, officially supported). I’ll give this a try.

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4

The “Official Way(s)” are Hello Home Actions, which make you set all the lights in the Action to the same dimmer level (and there are lots of ways to trigger the Action, such as one of the buttons on the $25 Aeon Minimote), I or one of the Solution SmartApps in which you can group lights into Shortcuts first then attach to a trigger… But I’m not sure if each light can have its own dim level that way either.

Screenshot_2015-02-03-20-56-13.png720×1280 110 KB

Hence my love for Scene recording the current levels as the clever Scene Machine does.

5

“Dim and Dimmer” is another “unofficial” app you could try.

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6

Well, I tried the Scene Machine code from both Github and in ST shared Apps and neither seem to work - at least with my dimmable bulbs. I noticed that @wackware mentioned in the thread you pointed me to that the code wasn’t working (but could be easily fixed), but I couldn’t find any fixed code. Does anyone know where there is a version that works?

8

Hi all, I’m not sure if im in the right place and forgive my lack of basic skills. But here’s what I’m trying to do, and maybe you can help: I have a ST motion sensor and Wemo light switch set so that detected motion turns on the light. Works great. But I use this in my theater room. So now if some gets up to go to the bathroom, the lights come on. What I’d like to do is to switch modes via a hello home phrase so that my motion lights won’t come on during the movie. I was hoping to trigger the phrase with my screen coming down or some other command to my home theater components. I use Roomie remote to manage my home theater equipment. Any thoughts?? Thanks in advance.

9

I have adapted a smart app to do just this:

2 Likes
10

Fantastic. I’ll give it a try!

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11

Scene Machine is not working?

12

Haven’t tried it. I also have to admit, sadly, that I’m not entirely sure how to make these smart apps appear on my smart things app. Is there a basic tutorial? Sorry for the stupid questions.

13

@wackware I just tried to install it and I got a “Metadata definition not found” (Copied from github)

BTW - started using Dim with me - love it! Nice work as usual.

14

@wackware It didn’t work for me when I tried it. I didn’t notice an error when I saved the code, but my Cree bulbs were not working. I might be the Cree device type and not Scene Machine…but you mentioned in another thread that it wasn’t working anymore and needed updating. The source on Github looks quite old. Is there updated code somewhere?

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15

Scene machine should be working now. I added the meta def section. Let me know how it works for you.

16

Have you been able to try the updated version?

Click here to get it

Hope you enjoy it! BTW, stay tuned for Mo-Scene Machine in a week or so.
Lights and beyond!

2 Likes
17

This is my solution:

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18

Well, it doesn’t seem to be working for me. First, I’m not sure when it reads the light settings. I created an instance of the app, but hadn’t set the levels that I wanted. Then I set the levels of two Cree bulbs and a WeMo switch (to off), went back in and didn’t change the set of lights, but hit done, done, hoping that would read the levels.

I then turned all the bulbs to 100% and the WeMo to on, and hit the icon for the app. The WeMo properly turned off, but the Cree bulbs did not dim. Maybe it is the beta Cree device type…?

19

Hmm, sounds like the Cree’s aren’t getting/recording the state correctly. I’ll order a couple and see what I can do to fix this. Do you have any other light devices you can use this for?

What model and where’d you get the cree bulbs?

T

20

I got it to work but I kept getting errors on the description - had to change it.

21

The Cree’s are the new Connected Cree bulbs (Cree version of the GE Link). They’re using a community device-type that I put together from the My GE Link Bulb v2 device-type. It should have the Level and setLevel events, but let me know if you see an issue with the device-type (it needs to be cleaned up a lot).