Dimming over time with transition

Configuration
1

I am trying to turn on a light over time so that it reaches 100% brightness slowly.

To see whether the transition is working I currently have the transition set to 25 seconds, I’ll adjust later.

When I run the action it goes straight to 100% brightness without ever transitioning. No matter what I try it’s always the same result.

How can I get this to work? I thought the transition would take care of it automatically, documentation is spectacularly lacking and I wasn’t able to find any answer by googling it, none of the proposed solutions work.

Here’s what I’m using now, that doesn’t work.

service: light.turn_on
data:
  entity_id: light.salon
  transition: 25
  brightness_pct: 100
2

The answer is that depends on the hardware - Home Assistant doesn’t itself handle transitions - it passes the instruction to the hardware. For example - I can happily send transition commands to my Zigbee lights connected via Zigbee2MQTT, but my ZWave bulbs ignore transition commands and just immediately go to the requested brightness.

3

Could be, I’m using proprietary hardware by my electricity provider on their zigbee hub.

4

Could this be done another way, say with a script?

I’ve been trying to understand how to implement them and I even saw some python examples but the documentation is lacking as to how to actually integrate them?

5

Sure, here is a script I use to gradually increase the volume of Google Nest speakers - this can easily be adapted to change light brightness instead of media volume.

alias: Music Walk Volume Adjust
fields:
  media_target:
    description: The media player to target
    example: media_player.kitchen_nest
  volume_target:
    description: The target volume to increase to
    example: 0.96
sequence:
  - condition: template
    value_template: >-
      {{ (state_attr(media_target,'volume_level')|float(0)|round(1) <
      (volume_target|float(0))) or ((volume_target|float(0)) <
      (state_attr(media_target,'volume_level')|float(0)|round(1))) }}
  - choose:
      - conditions:
          - condition: template
            value_template: >-
              {{ (state_attr(media_target,'volume_level')|float(0)|round(1) <
              (volume_target|float(0))) }}
        sequence:
          - repeat:
              until:
                - condition: template
                  value_template: >-
                    {{ state_attr(media_target,'volume_level')|float(0)|round(1)
                    >= volume_target }}
              sequence:
                - delay:
                    hours: 0
                    minutes: 0
                    seconds: 0
                    milliseconds: 650
                - service: media_player.volume_set
                  data:
                    entity_id: "{{ media_target }}"
                    volume_level: >
                      {% set cv =
                      state_attr(media_target,'volume_level')|float(0) %} {% set
                      nv = cv + 0.0450|float|round(3) %} {{ nv }}
          - delay:
              hours: 0
              minutes: 0
              seconds: 1
              milliseconds: 0
          - service: media_player.volume_set
            data:
              entity_id: "{{ media_target }}"
              volume_level: "{{ volume_target }}"
      - conditions:
          - condition: template
            value_template: >-
              {{ ((volume_target|float(0)) <
              (state_attr(media_target,'volume_level')|float(0)|round(1))) }}
        sequence:
          - repeat:
              until:
                - condition: template
                  value_template: >-
                    {{ state_attr(media_target,'volume_level')|float(0)|round(1)
                    < volume_target }}
              sequence:
                - service: media_player.volume_down
                  data:
                    entity_id: "{{ media_target }}"
                - delay:
                    hours: 0
                    minutes: 0
                    seconds: 0
                    milliseconds: 650
          - delay:
              hours: 0
              minutes: 0
              seconds: 1
              milliseconds: 0
          - service: media_player.volume_set
            data:
              entity_id: "{{ media_target }}"
              volume_level: "{{ volume_target }}"
    default: []
mode: parallel
max: 5

Simple change the service call to light.turn_on instead and the volume_level to brightness

1 Like
6

Here is what I use to transition my deck light at sunset over about 15 minutes:

  - alias: LC Deck Light Fade On at Dusk
    initial_state: 'on'
    mode: restart
    trigger:
      - platform: state
        entity_id: sensor.dark_outside
        to: 'true'
      - platform: sun
        event: sunset
        offset: "+00:07:00"
    condition:
      - condition: state
        entity_id: light.deck_light_0a4c
        state: 'off'
    action:
      - service: light.turn_on
        data:
          entity_id: light.deck_light_0a4c
          brightness: 5
      - repeat:
          sequence:
            - service: light.turn_on
              data:
                entity_id: light.deck_light_0a4c
                brightness: "{{ state_attr('light.deck_light_0a4c', 'brightness') | int + 1 }}"
            - delay: 2
          until:
            condition: or
            conditions:
              - condition: template
                value_template: "{{ state_attr('light.deck_light_0a4c', 'brightness') | int >= 254 }}"
              - condition: state
                entity_id: light.deck_light_0a4c
                state: 'off'

the only issue is that if HA gets restarted or automations get reloaded during the transition it will be stuck there. So I use this one to resume the transistion:

  - alias: LC Deck Light Resume Fade On at Dusk
    mode: restart
    trigger:
      - platform: homeassistant
        event: start
      - platform: event
        event_type: automation_reloaded
    condition:
      - condition: state
        entity_id: light.deck_light_0a4c
        state: 'on'
      - condition: template
        value_template: "{{ state_attr('light.deck_light_0a4c', 'brightness') | int < 254 }}"
    action:
      - delay:
          seconds: 10
      - repeat:
          sequence:
            - service: light.turn_on
              data:
                entity_id: light.deck_light_0a4c
                brightness: "{{ state_attr('light.deck_light_0a4c', 'brightness') | int + 1 }}"
            - delay: 2
          until:
            condition: or
            conditions:
              - condition: template
                value_template: "{{ state_attr('light.deck_light_0a4c', 'brightness') | int >= 254 }}"
              - condition: state
                entity_id: light.deck_light_0a4c
                state: 'off'

I could probably combine them into one but I’m not that anal about having everything in one automation.

2 Likes
7

I don’t use this (because my lighting accepts transition) but it might interest you:

1 Like
8

Hadn’t thought of repeat, that’s not a bad idea at all.

1 Like
9

Was the Light Fader I had suggested of any use to you? Or did you solve your problem by creating a script like finity like in finity’s example?

10

I ended up using the python script suggested. Got me to learn how to integrate them at the same time so it’s a win-win

1 Like