"Guest-Proofing" GE Zwave Dimmers

Configuration
1

We had a bunch of family up for my daughters birthday party last weekend, and I learned that most of them don’t understand the concept of a light switch that doesn’t stay in the “on” or “off” position, so they ended up holding the switch down and effectively dimming the lights to the minimum without actually shutting them off. Which then led to others not being able to figure out how to turn the lights back on when they would press up on the switches without holding it down.

So I’m thinking I need some kind of automation where if the light is dimmed below a certain threshold, it sets the brightness back to 100% and turns the light off. But I’m not sure the best way to go about doing that, since these switches do the fades on/off when the press the button. Does a state change trigger every time the brightness level is changed?

This is one of those automations that would typically be disabled, and only enabled when we have a large number of guests over.

2

How about never allow below xx%(some value bright enough to be seen but never appear OFF)
This will prevent dimming to appear on.
Anyone turning on light would understand iight is dimmed and raise to desired levels.

OR

add automation that disables dimming during visits

3

I was thinking an automation to disable dimming, but not sure the best way to implement it, especially since those switches don’t support instant status.

4

It depends, were they your family or your wife’s family. Just kidding. It took my kids about 3 days to get the hang of it too. It’s like they didn’t trust the switch, so they held the switch to see if the light went off, throwing it into dimmer mode. It’s that slight delay that seems to drive them crazy. The other option and one I am considering, is do you really want those lights to dim at all?

5

Dimming on these switches is useful occasionally, especially at night.

6

How about two automations, one to turn the light off if dimmed below x, another automation triggered by the on state with a condition when dimmer level is below x, set dimmer level to 100%.

This would then only run if someone dimmed the lights to a very low level.