So, for a week or so I have been pounding my head, finally decide to ST support, and now my head is really spinning.
I have created a scene for my kitchen. The scene included 2 hue strip lights, a GE wall switch, and a GE dimmer switch. The scene was to turn on strips at 50%, GE dimmer @ 30%, and GE wall switch on. So whenever I activated scene, it would not turn on the GE On/Off switch. After hundreds of different approaches, I figured out you can not add a dimmer option any of the 2 light strips or the GE Wall Dimmer lights. In order for the On/Off switch to work in a scene, you can only turn the others on - no dimming. ST told me that the dimmer takes precedence over the On/Off switch, therefore, you cannot dim anything if you want the On/Off to work and offered no “work around”.
Correct me if I am wrong, but, Isn’t this as basic as you can get in an electronic circuit? Am I I missing something?? Are they telling me that, with all this brilliant technology, I cant turn on a light and dim another in a room? So when I wake up and walk in the kitchen, my lights have to be on full blast??
Maybe I’m the stupid one, but can someone help me understand what, if anything, I am not getting here?
This is just poor design on their part, there’s no device-based technical reason for that limitation.
The way around it is to have two separate automations, one for the on/off switch and one for the dimmers, with the same trigger.
Just to prove it’s not the devices, here’s a HomeKit automation which sets a hue bulb to 75% and turns on a Lutron nondimmer switch in one automation. Works fine. 
The smartthings limitation is in the way smartthings chose to design their scene architecture. 
Yeah, I understand what your saying. I had insteon system before taking this plunge and it all worked fine. I still think its idiotic not to have that control with a simple scene. Thanks for your input!!
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