How do I set my flex to full RGB colors (e.g. pure red)?
Replying to my own thread to answer this since it was a reasonable problem that has a very simple solution and I fully expect other noobs to stumble into the same situation:
If I was an entirely pointyclicky user with no IDE hacking at all, the Flex would have paired with the default profile, which is apparently ZigBee RGBW Bulb. Unfortunately I had a custom profile from here in the forums for Lightify Bulb v2 that uses the same âsignatureâ (<- not sure if thatâs the right term), and apparently the Smart Things platform will choose custom profiles over default ones if there are two profiles that both match the device signature (this is reasonable behavior, in my opinion). Going into the IDE from the web to select the correct profile accomplished all of my needs.
Basically knowing that a Sylvania OSRAM Lightify Flex should map to a ZigBee RGBW Bulb is the critical thing (note that the brand key terms and profile literally have zero overlapping words, unfortunately, hence this crafted sentence).
So from the ST app, how did you select pure red? For me, using the color picker in the app gives very hit or miss results. I can have the picker all the way to the top left )of bottom color section) and it turns red⊠but not near a deep and pure red as when I use CoRE to set the color to âRedâ.
I agree the color match in reality isnât great. I have not tried to âoptimizeâ that at all. I simply used the preset color dots at the bottom of the app UI (note that those continue âoff screenâ and I only saw orange and yellow at first⊠I had to swipe to get to the rest of the rainbow).
Chat support told me it is trivial to use the IDE to set hex values. I did not, however, ask how to do that.
Okay, I used those color dots as well and stumbled on the one off screen the 3rd or 4th time I messed with it. This thread did prompt me to go digging around the IDE for this device and Iâve not seen a place where I could enter or even see the current hex value. The only values I see are Level, Hue and Saturation and those donât appear to be editable.
My 2 cents. I have several osram RGBW products and feel your pain on the colors. My issue was more using virtually any smart app that sets colors (they all seem to match Phillips hue products significantly better) which irks me more because I use the color picker less than setup colors via automation rules. The ONLY smart app that accurately sets osram colors for me is CoRE & itâs spot on. The only colors that I use the app manually to set is shades of white which I canât stand the presets in any standard Osram DH, none of them match what I would call white so I use a custom DH that has 3 preset white temps that do just what I need (I modified the daylight down to 4K though). Iâd recommend this DH over pretty much any other for that reason & a bunch of other presets it includes.
Sorry whatâs DH stand for in this context 
?
Device Handler or Device Type Handler. Think of it as analogous to a device driver on a PC. Read the corresponding section in the thread below. Using a different DH can significantly change the user experience in terms of expanded controls / shortcuts / more details of device state / etc
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So Iâve tried to use CoRE to set âredâ and Iâm getting an error. Did you do anything special to make that work? Iâll dig and find the error in the Live Logging in a few minutes.
Also, I found that the default RGBW DH triggers a âsetColor()â that seems to take a super redundant array of arguments (this declares a shade of red using three different methods!):
setColor([red:245, hex:#F5A623, blue:35, saturation:85.71428504959835, hue:10.39682573716995, green:166, alpha:1])
No, nothing special. I just select the Lightify strip in the Action step and then select âset colorâ and âredâ as the actual Action. When does the error show up, as soon as you select Red? Does it error when you select another color in the huge list of colors CoRE has?
I created a piston thatâs tied to a minimote button. The creation process worked fine. The minimote triggers the piston as expected. The âerrorâ is a officially:
info DID NOT PARSE MESSAGE for description : catchall: 0104 0008 03 01 0000 00 54D1 00 00 0000 0B 01 0400
While thatâs technically just an informational statement, at least according to what I see there, I consider it an error because the color setting is getting ignored. The piston:
- if minimote button pushed
- then 1) set color = RED 2) set level to 10%
perhaps Iâm missing some setup stuff? The light comes on as I expect (meaning âset level to 10%â correctly implies âit needs to be on, if it wasnât alreadyâ), but the color doesnât change at all (which leads me to believe the set color command is the thing that could not be parsed).
Iâm playing around with this a bunch right now and Iâm beginning to think there are significantly different handling routines in the Flex based on the type of control one chooses. Color-TEMP based controls seem instant, accurate, and consistent whereas anything to do FULL-color is significantly delayed and sometimes fails.
In full-color control situations the Flex seems to respond to the on/off command relatively quickly but it delays the color controls (even if they are the first THEN clause in a piston). This is frustrating because I have 2 different pistons:
- Turn all lights in the room on and set them to 6500K and 100% (this is for standard daytime âgive me all the lumens!!â usage)
- Turn on just the Flex at 10% and in some flavor of pure red (for nightvision reasons - Iâm literally calling this ânightlightâ). Unfortunately this mode come on at âwhatever the last setting wasâ then takes 2 - 5 seconds to adjust the color. This is completely unreasonable because it ruins night vision if the last mode was âanything other than full red.â Iâm going to play with the timing and see if I can get a consistent behavior that cleanly starts from red no matter what.
Iâll try and make time when I get home this evening to do some screen shots of how I set mine up and maybe even a video of the light when the piston is executed. I have my piston set to fade both level and color when my Mode changes (I use red at night for the same reason as you). When my Mode changes from âEveningâ to âNightâ, it fades from the teal color my wife likes to red over a couple of seconds. I do get some âstutterâ when it changes over, but I think that is due to my fade time. Iâve yet to test removing that fade part to see if I get a crisp change in color and level.
On rare occasions (last night was one of them) the color will fail to change, but I donât know if that is a Flex issue, a CoRE issue, a ST issue, or a WiFi/Ineternet issue. lol
Video or debug logs of whatâs happening on your end would be really cool. Hereâs my piston so far - note that what actually happens is the light turns on to 20% immediately with âwhatever the color wasâ then transitions (coincidentally) to a teal color, then transitions to âwhatever I setâ (which is currently red, but Iâve tried a few other colors).
Mine is a bit more complicated than yours, so here is the piston dashboard view:
All of the âTurn Onâ actions are for just in case it was off for some reason.
Iâll work on some video of you.
Okay, here is a video of the above piston running. It starts with the Mode in âDawnâ and then I manually push it through Mode changes with a separate routine that use to trouble shoot pistons tied to Mode changes.
If you fallow the piston dashboard, the Dawn function is towards the bottom because I added it later on. It actually is at the start of video.
- This is awesome, thanks.
- I hate to ask, but can you test out my use case more and explain how you got things to work? My specific case is, âFlex was ANYCOLORBUTRED and then was turned off, then it being re-activated in RED and at a low %â <- I want to see that happen where the light comes on in RED with no need to activate-then-change. Make sense?
Iâm not great at writing pistons yet, so could you upload a screen shot of your pistonâs dashboard? That way I can build it the way you have it.
Iâm confused because I thought âthe pistons dashboardâ is the thing Iâve already uploaded (my screenshot from a few posts ago)⊠is there a way to get to this data via desktop/web instead of through my iOS app? If so let me know where⊠thatâs news to me!
