X10 - How to dim lights

Configuration
1

I’m new to Home Assistant and am slowly working through my setup. I have configured X10 devices to work with mochad, which is mostly successful. My lights and switches turn on and off. However, I don’t see anyway to control the dimming function of the lights. I added the entry for brightness_levels but there is no slider or other control for brightness in the HA interface. Have I missed something?

Update:
Here is a segment from my configuration.yaml file showing the setup for my lights:

light:
  - platform: mochad
    devices:
     
      - address: c7
        name: Driveway_lights
        comm_type: rf
        brightness_levels:  32
      - address: c8
        name: Vineyard_lights
        comm_type: rf
        brightness_levels:  32

Not sure if relevant, but in Configurator brightness_level and 32 appear as blue in color whereas the other variables (address, etc.) the name is blue but the contents (c7, c8, etc.) are black. Maybe HA is misreading the brightness settings???

2

X10 doesn’t have a reliable feedback mechanism it is mostly send and forget it. My best suggestion is to try troubleshooting manually to see if you can make it dim

Example:

nc localhost 1099
rf c7 off
rf c7 on
rf c7 dim 15
rf c7 bright 15

This way you can figure out if it’s your device, Mochad, or HA. Your device might not support dim/bright.

3

I know the devices support dimming…in wall light switches. Just trying to find out how one is supposed to be able to dim them within HA. Also notice in the segment of configuration.yaml posted above…Odd that the numerals for brightness level are blue rather than red as is the case with the other variables. Not sure if there is any significance. Also, there isn’t any dimming control in the HA interface, just on/off so nothing to troubleshoot except missing control.

4

What version of Mochad are you using. What X10 controller are you using. The CM15 or the CM19

To my knowledge dimming never worked with Mochad in HA. In fact between lock ups and the dimming issues I ended up reverting to the power line option in the form of the CM11 and Heyu.

5

Getting my information from here:

Light

The mochad light platform lets you control an X10 enabled dimmer/light device.
** Configuration Variables**

address

** (string)(Required)**

** The X10 address of the light.**

name

** (string)(Optional)**

** The name of the light.**

** Default value:**

** x10_light_dev_address**
comm_type

** (string)(Optional)**

** pl (powerline) or rf (radio frequency).**

** Default value:**

** pl**
brightness_levels

** (integer)(Optional)**

** The number of brightness levels the X10 light device supports. This can either be 32, 64, or 256 (note that the max value sent to the device will be n-1 because it starts at 0).**

** Default value:**

** 32**

Here is what is shown in the HA interface:

image

Seems to not differentiate between lights and switches even though it should.

6

The color is just syntax highlighting. It doesn’t really mean anything. Black is parameter name: Red is string value. Blue is integer value.

Again I recommend trying to troubleshoot by talking directly to mochad. For the record, X10 doesn’t get much love anymore as more and more people have moved to Z-Wave. Zigbee and the like. There are
becoming fewer and fewer of us :slight_smile: As well as many us have begun phasing out our X10 Devices as well. .

7

I understand X10 is out of fashion, but I have several units and thought I’d give them a try. (Okay, I’m very frugal and don’t like to toss anything out.) :wink:

Not sure how Mochad can be of any assistance since it seems to be an HA config/interface issue as no slider or any other type of dimmer control is shown. Haven’t even sent any command to Mochad to dim the light, just turn it on (which does work.) On/off is better than nothing, but was hoping to control brightness as well, especially since it seems to be part of the Mochad integration.

8

Looking at the HA component code and it does support dim, bright, xdim

Again mochad may not be returning state value

As you see I have a brightness slider
Screenshot%20from%202019-08-15%2020-07-31

9

Stupid question: Does this only work if mochad is on the same system? My mochad is on different Pi…

Can you install mochad on the Hass image? Is the code you listed in the default build of HA or does it need to be added?

10

Stupid question: Does this only work if mochad is on the same system? My mochad is on different Pi…

No. Mochad can literally run anywhere. Just so long as you can make a TCP connection to it.

Can you install mochad on the Hass image?

I’m sure you can. I prefer to build from scratch (python_venv method) So I couldn’t answer that with any degree of confidence.

Is the code you listed in the default build of HA or does it need to be added?

It’s a default component and has been largely unchanged for a long time.

11

You didn’t mention what X10 controller you were using or what version of Mochad you were running so it makes it a little more difficult to narrow down your problem.

I built Mochad from this source https://github.com/SensorFlare/mochad/blob/840e6c8b2547f0186aba482df78fe120f8f6bf4f/README and installed it on the same Pi that’s running HA. As you can see from the link you can run Mochad from any server as long as you specify the IP address of the host.

I’m not sure how familiar you are with Mochad but have a good read of the documentation on the above link which should answer most of your questions. I can only suggest that you experiment with various settings to see what combination works best for you.

There’s a number of other X10 Mochad postings on the HA community forum you could read that describe other users experiences using Mochad in HA.

12

So … the CM11 and Heyu works better than the CM19 and Mochad? And dimming works? I do have the CM19 working with Mochad, but it has spotty performance and of course, no dimming.

13

Yes that’s my experience.