Dimmer brightness changing when turning off

Configuration Z-Wave
1

Hi, pretty new to HA and migrating 100s of devices from SmartThings. Only issue I have at the moment that I haven’t figured out is with my Jasco (GE) Z-Wave dimmable light switches. In SmartThings when a dimmer was turned off, the brightness remained the same for when turning the switch back on. I would like this same behavior in HA.

But what I see, is the brightness goes to 3 when turning off the light. When I turn the light back on, the actual brightness restores to its previous level (yay) but the slider and attribute are at 3. So the slider in Lovelace or TileBoard do not show correctly. Nor do the brightness buttons adjust properly the first time.

Any tips for having this brightness value remain the same between the switch going off?

Thanks so much for any help.

2

You need to set refresh_value and delay. E.g., here is what I have for one of mine:

light.family_room_lamp:
  ignored: false
  polling_intensity: 1
  refresh_value: true
  delay: 4
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3

Thanks so much for that @pnbruckner. Unfortunately it did not work for me, but thinking it is how I did the config since I am an HA noob.

In configuration.yaml, added:

homeassistant:
  customize: !include customize.yaml

In customize.yaml, added:

light.office_light:
  ignored: false
  polling_intensity: 1
  refresh_value: true
  delay: 4

Is that how you override an existing entities settings? Or since the light.office_light was created via the z-wave integration GUI, does this need to be set somewhere else?

UPDATE Found in the Z-Wave configure tool I could set the “polling intensity” so changed that to 1, and it would display(not sure I can change) the other values and they were the same as your config. Still did not fix the problem of keeping the brightness between on/off switches :frowning:.

Thanks so much!

4

Wrong location. You either need to set it inline in the zwave configuration, or specify a separate file as shown here.

zwave:
  device_config: !include zwave_device_config.yaml

The Z-Wave control panel will write the settings to the zwave_device_config.yaml file, but you need to include it manually.

If you configured z-wave via the UI integration, you still need to set this in configuration.yaml.

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5

Ahhh, that was it, great to know! Thank you @freshcoast. At least that fixed my ignorance with the z-wave config location.

But the light still does not behave how I would like. When I turn it off, the brightness level stayed at first (I celebrated) but it still drops down after like 5 seconds. And during that 5 seconds cannot turn the light back on (with the button, only with adjusting the slider).

6

I ended up going with

light.office_light:
  ignored: false
  polling_intensity: 1
  refresh_value: true
  delay: 1

The key @pnbruckner pointed out for me was to set the polling_intensity and refresh_value. While the brightness slider still goes to 0 when off, it resets back within a few seconds when turning the light on. I can live with that. Doesn’t seem quite as smooth as how SmartThings handled it though. So far the only thing I give SmartThings a slight 1up on, everything else in HA has been great so far :slight_smile:

I might tinker with the delay a bit more, but 1 seems good for now. Might go with 2.

Thanks for all the help!

7

Delay should account for how long it takes the light to transition. The default Z-Wave configuration parameters in the device results in a transition time of around 3 seconds, which is why I used 4.

EDIT: For reference (I think this information is still valid) see:

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