Sunrise scene

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  • Last Post 24 September 2013
tmonroe posted this 19 September 2013

I apologize if this has been covered before.

I want to build a scene which will gradually brighten my bedroom light, at a preset time each morning (simulating sunrise).

Intuitively, it seems that a single command to brighten the light to 100%, with a several second delay between steps would work, however it only seems to brighten from 0 to some value above 0 (like 5, and then it takes a step back to 4), and never does anything else.

I have been experimenting with setting the light to a value, and then a pause, and then a higher value, but it seems to only get the first 4 steps. In my most recent test, it gradually brightened over the course of 15 minutes from 0 to 64, but then stopped and didn't go any further.

I think I don't understand how the advanced options in a scene are supposed to work.

I think I understand what "Start Level" is supposed to do - but is this level ignored if "set start level" is not checked? Also, what is the purpose of the delay?

Maybe there is an issue with my light? If I set the light to 100% with no delay in a scene, it goes right to 100%. But if I put a delay, it only goes up a fraction of the commanded value, and then stops.



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Ryan-Scott posted this 23 September 2013

I apologize if this has been covered before.

I want to build a scene which will gradually brighten my bedroom light, at a preset time each morning (simulating sunrise).

Intuitively, it seems that a single command to brighten the light to 100%, with a several second delay between steps would work, however it only seems to brighten from 0 to some value above 0 (like 5, and then it takes a step back to 4), and never does anything else.

I have been experimenting with setting the light to a value, and then a pause, and then a higher value, but it seems to only get the first 4 steps. In my most recent test, it gradually brightened over the course of 15 minutes from 0 to 64, but then stopped and didn't go any further.

I think I don't understand how the advanced options in a scene are supposed to work.

I think I understand what "Start Level" is supposed to do - but is this level ignored if "set start level" is not checked? Also, what is the purpose of the delay?

Maybe there is an issue with my light? If I set the light to 100% with no delay in a scene, it goes right to 100%. But if I put a delay, it only goes up a fraction of the commanded value, and then stops.





The ideal way to achieve this would be to add the light to the scene at the final value -- at "full on", for example. Then click the gear icon and check "set Start level" and set it to 0. Then on start delay, leave it at 0 and "time between changes" to some value like 2000. This will make the light start at 0 and increase by 1 every 2 seconds until you hit your scene target level of "full on."

If the light doesn't get all the way on, it's possible you are running into a scenario where your z-wave network strength isn't that strong and it's aborting your light. If that's the case, download the latest versions 3.35 and make sure the checkbox about "aborting" is NOT checked. For details see here.

tmonroe posted this 24 September 2013

Thank you - the "not aborting" option seems to help. As I understand, the switch I'm to control would be relaying commands out to the rest of my devices. I'm going to add an additional zwave switch closer to the PC and see if that makes any difference.

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