My intent was to use this in my master bathroom. The idea is once the house is in night mode kick on a light at 10% with motion when house is in night mode.
First yes I installed the device handler and that is amazing! To achieve my ideas I had to put the switch in manual mode, within smartthings, meaning it isn’t going to turn on with motion at all. Next I created a smart lighting rule for my automation night mode. I realized 2 problems now.
The light at 10% is too bright. The settings won’t allow me to go any lower. Is there a way to fix this?
There is no way to overwrite the smart lighting app if you want to take a shower unless you disarm the house. Is there a better way to do this? I would like to override this by a double tap. And yes the switch does have that feature by the lighting rule will take over.
WebCore will let you set a light lower than 10%. My experience has been that the bathroom light was too bright even at 1% so we use regular nightlights. This is a personal preference thing though.
For showers and extended bathroom visits I use open/close sensors on the bathroom doors. If a door is closed, the lights will stay on until the door is opened and the motion sensor rule “times out”.
I found an app on GitHub to do 1% but you are right it is still a bit more bright than you’d expect. It’s called Smartthings lighting and dimming. My issue is it waits 1 minute to turn light off. I’d like 20 seconds.
That is a good idea for the door sensor. I already spent a lot of money trying this switch and hate to spend an extra $30.
I installed webcore but it’s a bit out of my league. I will have to look into it more. I don’t like the idea tasks being sent to the web. I’d prefer it to all be local.
If you use anything but smart lighting and default device handlers your going out to the web anyway. That app you found is going out to the web just like webcore.
The only motion sensor I found that will do less than a minute is Ecolink. It will do 15 sec or 4 minutes. Those are your 2 options without using programming rules. All the others I have used will only go down to 1 minute. Others may have used some sensor I am not aware of so they might chime in.
To be honest, I have tried many combinations over the last 3 years and have found anything less than 4 minutes for us in any room and the darn light is turning out on us. YMMV though. This is the number that worked for us without putting multiple motion sensors in every room. I weighed the cost of the sensors vs a few extra minutes of an LED and it wasn’t cost effective. In fact, I don’t think anything except HVAC control is probably going to actually save any money after you figure out the hardware costs.
I think I read somewhere that Smartthings has removed double tap from the system. Not that it was reliable anyway. If I’m wrong someone please correct me. I haven’t tried to use it in ages.
If you do a search on bathrooms you will find many thread on how people have automated theirs.
Also, get used to spending money on this. It becomes an addiction. LOL
