Take a look at Scene Presets: Hue-like scenes for generic light entities - Share your Projects! / Custom Integrations - Home Assistant Community
You could use it to create some really nice effects for your DMX fixtures.
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I have tried to do animations with it the integration, but thereās one big drawback to it. Doing animations in software stalls the HA thread.
Iāve animated my addressable LED stairs to go on and off, which worked smoothly, but stalled the HA thread until itās done, meaning nothing else happens in the house until itās finished. If instead, I give control back to HA between each frame, the animation becomes laggy, and sometimes HA forgets about my thread all together.
So to do animations properly, it will require an add-on. This so that we can have our own dedicated thread just for our animations. This is something Iāll do eventually for sure, since my stairs are bothering me.
For now, the emulated hue bridge works on HA. So if that community has animations working, you can try that out. I use it for syncing my Philips TV to my RGBW lights and works brilliantly.
Other than that, adaptive lighting is also pretty neat. Syncs color temperature to the time of day.
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Hey guys, I scanned this huge thread but didnt find the answer toā¦
Is there any guides on basic HA DMX control for beginners that will detail what hardware/controllers work best (what to avoid) and software are the pre-reqs?
Hereās what I think I knowā¦
- Art-Net is the comms method we need to use.
- We need to create an āArtNet Nodeā using a hardware controller that translates ArtNet<->DMX?
Iām starting from scratch with zero experienceā¦ Are there recommended hardware controllers/nodes for use with HA?
Iām building out my basement and it will have at least 10 zones/areas : Most are 16ft each but a two areas need 50-60 ft of LED controlled together.
thanks for the help and advice!
I just installed OLAd on a pi and used that as my node
Hi @Breina-
Iāve been playing around with the DMX input capability. Iām curious: What are your thoughts on the most efficient way to map the virtual entities to other lights in Home Assistant?
Iām playing around with using the DMX input to control six Zigbee RGB lights (currently using older Hue bulbs). I attempted to use an automation to map the values over, but, unsurprisingly, it brought HA to its knees. I was going to switch to a Node-RED flow and thought I would check here to see if anyone has developed something more efficient.
Thanks!
(1) Thereās 3 big standards:
- ArtNet: private standard, but everyone is allowed to use it
- sACN: open ANSI standard
- kiNET: A closed source standard, requires reverse engineering to use. Mostly used for building lighting afaik.
ArtNet and sACN can basically do the same, but for this integration, ArtNet is built out more. Iām planning to tackle sACN when everything else is ready.
(2) In ArtNet terminology:
Node: A device that translates DMX512 to or from Art-Net is referred to as a Node.
Controller: A generic term describing an Art-Net device with the primary task of
generating control data. For example, a lighting console.
So you need to purchase a hardware ArtNet node, and our integration runs an ArtNet controller.
Wire it like this:
HA āUTPā> ArtNet node āDMXā> DMX LED Driver āLED wiresā> LED lights
With āftā of lights, do you mean like a LED strip?
Heh, yeah, Iāll implement rate limiting for that next version. Good timing actually, as Iām currently working on DMX input for platform refactor.
Something Iāve also noticed is that animations (transitions) stall, which is HA needing its thread elsewhere. I think the proper way to fix this is to move part of the ArtNet controller into a separate daemon, as an Add-on, so that we have proper control over threading. Though not everyone has an installation that supports Add-ons.
Iād like to change light colors/scenes from HA but also from a wall plate so guests and family can do it easily; like this oneā¦
Is this possible?
With controllers, any particular things to look for or to avoid?
I see a TON of different makes/model controllers. Its hard to know/see if there are any differences that matter to my use case?
likeā¦
https://www.superlightingled.com/led-artnet-dmx-controller-c-7_51_571.html
I think I get itā¦ Artnet and DMX are (technically) separate control devices. BUT the controllers Iām looking at above, they are built together into a single box, yes? in the case of the CANRIA K16, it looks like it also supports SPI-TTL so I can run both Standard LED (5 wire RGBW) and Addressable LED strips?
āftā = length in Feet (US). LED strips here are sold in 16.4 foot lengths (500 cm)
Havenāt done anything with Z-wave yet, I guess itās supposed to look like this;
Not sure if HA can intercept this signal, but if it can, you can just have it trigger a call to service light.turn_on on the light entities that this integration creates.
I myself went for a separate ArtNet Node and LED drivers, think that was a lot cheaper since I have a huge amount of light channels. Some of yours, you can rack mount, some mount on a DIN-rail, some just screw in the wall. Some work with PoE. Etcā¦ Filter on what you need and pick the cheapest one. Fyi, we donāt yet support RDM.
Iām taking about DMX wall controllers, not Zwave.
there are many like thisā¦
Oh pretty cool!
In that case it should be something like this;
The two squares can be combined in 1 hardware thing if you find it. Just make sure that itās got a DMX input, DMX output (or LED output), and an ArtNet in- and output.
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OK, now the big question isā¦ does DMX add complexity (hardware & apps) I donāt need?
I wont have addressable LED strips so are there DMX advantages over using Zigbee or Zwave ā for me?
Not knowing DMX I can think of only one (maybe you have others?)
- DMX controller is separate from HA. If HA is down, DMX still works.
Real-time lighting, thatās the whole use-case. Being able to update your lights in milliseconds has use cases for animations or syncing your lights to your TV and such. In raw performance, I think Philips Hue is comparable, though itās proprietary, whilst DMX is open.
But DMX in itself is transparent to you, youād just need to connect the cable and for the rest donāt worry about it. No need for apps.
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