Just trying to run my hall lights on at 50% in the evening if they’re not already on.
The Trigger and If I think are figured out. However, the light does turn on at the specified time, but always at full brightness.
It’s a zwave (Ultra Pro or Zooz…I think Ultra Pro) dimmer. Does anyone know if there’s any trick to this? See below for pic I have tried.
Looks like you have chosen the device as a target where you should have chosen the light entity under the device. Remove the current target, click the green Choose entity, and find the associated light.whatever entity associated with your switch.
OK, thanks. I’ll give that a try.
FWIW: Choosing the light-device does seem to work if I’m just trying to toggle (or explicitly turn on/off) the switch.
That didn’t work. Not sure what’s up with this light switch. I can dim manually by pressing and holding the top or bottom of the toggle.
Good test. Here’s what I found:
I can dim it with the slider in the app. Works fine.
The perceived brightness (or actual, I guess) between about 45% and 100% is negligible if it’s anything at all. That is, setting the dimmer to 50% looks the same as 100%.
Dimming between about 10% and 40% works as I’d expect.
Very odd.
Don’t know if it’s these bulbs or the dimmer itself. But I’ll adjust my settings in my automation and see if I get something I like.
Thanks for working through it with me.
Different bulbs have different dim ranges. On my bulb the usable range is from 12-30. Some dimmers allow you to change the max and min brightness levels so I would check the configuration settings.
fyi, this is actually a not uncommon mistake… for audio volume and brightness, the “obvious” approach is to ramp the power up… so 90% volume/brightness is thought to be 90% power. but in reality, volume and brightness should be exponential. (if you think about it… so devices that code the power linearly will behave as you see. “correct” dimmers and volume controls are exponential in its power ramp…
Odd that it would be expressed a a percentage then.
I understand your reply, and that may truly be the case, but any logical person would equate a percentage to an absolute voltage percentage where 0% = 0v and 100% = 120v (in North America) with a linear path from one to the other.
I probably learned something today, so that’s a good thing. 
Dimmers don’t adjust voltage. They use triacs or MOSFETs to reduce power.
So when your dimmer is not working with the bulb through the full range - it means the dimmer is not compatible with the bulb. Determine what type of technology the dimmer uses, see if the vendor supplies a list of compatible bulbs, and then select the bulb.
Also (and largely off topic), don’t forget how amazing the human eye is. We don’t perceive dimming light in a linear fashion. For example during an eclipse (like the one upcoming in North America), the sunlight reduction from 100% to 10% or so (as measured by a lumens sensor) is noticeable, but nothing like the dramatic and awe-inspiring change as it goes from 10% to 0% and totality.
I think you mean logarithmic?
nope. our experience is logarithmic vs power, therefore to have linear experience, the volume controls should be exponential.
