Just got a hue dimmer switch (the rectangular 4 button one). I have managed to get it set up and it works as in, I can see the four button press / holds in the system. I have also tested this with a light and can assign the on off buttons correspondingly.
The question is, how do I actually get the dimmer to dim/ brighten a light?
Not sure, as at the moment, I’m not sure where the dimmer will end up as I’m currently just working out the possibilities and whether or not to get more of them.
I have a mixture of hue bulbs and LightwaveRF dimmers / switches.
OK, well, if it is a Hue light then you just associate the switch with the light in the Hue app and don’t worry about anything in homeassistant for it other than funky extras (like if you press and hold bright turn on disco mode or whatever)
If it’s not, then you’ll need to monitor for the press of a button as a trigger for a script that incrementally increases/decreases the brightness, and then monitor the release of the button to trigger another automation to stop the script.
BTW I used a brighness script with my xiaomi buttons - hold to cycle brightness up and down and release to keep.
Actually its a bit unreliable, so does not get used much.
I’ve been using the custom component and loved it, but recently I noticed some advances in the inbuilt ZHA Component and I have successfully added the Hue Dimmer Switch using HA’s native ZHA component.
It shows as a binary_sensor.xxxx for On / Off and there is an attribute to the sensor of level that changes when the dimmer buttons are pressed (from 0 to 255 in 10% blocks).
I am a relative newbie, and if this needs a new thread, then feel free to shut me off .
I was wondering if anyone new how to write the automation template that would allow me to use the binary sensor and the level attribute of this sensor in HA to control an entity.
@rickdubra
The only way you could use a Hue dimmer to dim a “Dumb Light” at the moment is to add a smart dimmer switch, like a Aeotec Nano-Dimmer or the like. It doesn’t need to be Z-Wave, there are other options. Z-Wave is just my preferred choice for smart switches at this time.
Then you would write an automation to use the button presses on the Philips Hue Dimmer to do the functions you want. I have not got any examples at this stage as I am not using the dimmers to dim, just as a 4 button controller.
As of writing this, the ZHA Component exposes the Hue Dimmer as a binary sensor with a level attribute.
The custom component mentioned exposes the buttons as sensors and you can do virtually anything with them in automations. With the custom component, you will need a Hue Bridge and for your hue devices to be connected to Home Assistant via the Hue Bridge
Just remember that to control any “dumb” device, you’d need some kind of smart switch wired in to control it
Thanks for for clarifying, what should be the best approach without breaking the bank?
1 Can Xiaomi zigbee light switches dimm dumb lamps.
2. Xiaomi Philips Zhirui can be dimmed by any switch or just the app?
3. There is any solution on z-wave or zigbee to achieve that integration otherwise will have to go with modules.
Thanks.
Hi Brendan, did you solve the problem, how to use the level attribute of hue dimmer?
I have a dimmer and hue bulb connected by a zigbee pen to HA só i would ned to associate the two…
I haven’t had a lot of time recently to play with it. It will be just a matter of writing a template to use the attribute I am sure.
The time I have spent on HA lately has been updating configs to work with the latest version after all the changes.
I might have another look at this soon.