First, thank you for sharing this. I was just beating my head against the wall trying to get off of using only binding (I know the value for redundancy but for a variety of reasons I prefer to use HA)
Second, just for anyone else who can be an idiot like me, when it comes to adding the sensor it goes under “mqtt:” not under template or sensors or whatever else. I don’t have any other custom MQTT devices so it threw me off for a bit trying to find where it went. Also from what I know, unique_id can be whatever as long as it’s unique.
Here’s an example of a complete setup in your HA config file:
I’m a bit of a newb to this, but I’m getting the following error in relation to this automation:
Logger: homeassistant.components.automation.zigbee2mqtt_lutron_aurora_dimmer_control
Source: components/automation/__init__.py:669
integration: Automation (documentation, issues)
First occurred: 3:43:07 AM (1 occurrences)
Last logged: 3:43:07 AM
Error rendering variables: UndefinedError: 'dict object' has no attribute 'to_state'
And the following warning as well:
Logger: homeassistant.helpers.template
Source: helpers/template.py:2613
First occurred: 3:42:50 AM (37 occurrences)
Last logged: 3:45:48 AM
Template variable warning: 'homeassistant.helpers.template.Wrapper object' has no attribute 'action' when rendering '{{ attrs["action"] }}'
Template variable warning: 'homeassistant.helpers.template.Wrapper object' has no attribute 'action_level' when rendering '{{ attrs["action_level"] }}'
Template variable warning: 'homeassistant.helpers.template.Wrapper object' has no attribute 'action_transition_time' when rendering '{{ attrs["action_transition_time"] }}'
Template variable error: 'dict object' has no attribute 'to_state' when rendering '{{ trigger.to_state.attributes }}'
Any idea how to fix? I added the entry to my config similar as to how Robert did it in the message above mine.
2.) Make a new sensor referencing wmaker’s post. You can either make a separate yaml or include it directly in your configuration.yaml. Use the file editor add-on to make your life easier.
# Custom Additions:
# You can uncomment the line below and optionally place the sensor below
# inside of sensor.yaml - it's up to you!
#sensor: !include sensor.yaml
mqtt:
sensor:
- name: "Switch_Lutron-Aurora-1"
unique_id: "0xffff000fe7fb806b"
state_topic: "zigbee2mqtt/Switch_Lutron-Aurora-1"
value_template: "{{ value_json.action }}"
json_attributes_topic: "zigbee2mqtt/Switch_Lutron-Aurora-1"
json_attributes_template: "{{ value_json | tojson }}"
3.) When you create the automation from the blueprint use the new sensor you just created (name above) and NOT the action or brightness entities.
4.) Voila! Click for on/off. Turn to dim. Only minor caveat, the dimming isn’t very graceful. But it works!
I think I was able to fix the stuttery dimming by adding a transition to setting the brightness of the light. Using the 0.02 transition timing (that the aurora uses) wasn’t great, but using something like 0.2 is much more appealing. It’s a bit laggy, but you can tune that time to balance between smoothness and laginess.
I’m having my people flip on legacy until I fix mine so everything still works as before. I’m going to use the event entity method If I can make it work. I won’t use devices if I can help it. FYI.
How did you do this?
I tried something per page 5 of the Advanced Install Guide of Aurora, and while controlling the light on and off works perfectly, the brightness value of the light and the dimmer - at least per z2m - are not in sync.
I’ve been playing around with the event entity, (one has to first enable Z2M’s Home Assistant experimental event entities).
I haven’t been able to get a trigger to fire. I’m kinda thinking there is a bug.
The event entity lists the possible event types and the only one is:
brightness
Yet when I push the Aurora button, I get an error log saying
WARNING (MainThread) [homeassistant.components.mqtt.event] Invalid event type brightness_move_to_level for event.
fireplace_dimmer_action received on topic zigbee2mqtt/Fireplace Dimmer, payload {"event_type":"brightness_move_to_level"}
So I think Z2M is telling HA via autodiscovery that only brightness is supported, yet Z2M is instead sending brightness_move_to_level
I was finally able to get bindings to work in my setup (Aurora Dimmer to a couple of Philips Hue bulbs), so thought I would provide a quick write-up.
Binding is reasonably easy to setup using the Z2M UI, but the problem I kept running into was finding the right clusters to bind with that would actually allow the Aurora Dimmer to control the bulbs.
Steps
Pre-check: Determining Endpoints and Clusters
a. Goto Z2M-UI Philips Hue Device and see what clusters it supports and in which endpoint.
For mine, the Endpoint was 11 which has Level Control, OnOff, Touchlink, and other clusters of interest
b. Goto Z2M-UI Aurora Device and see what clusters it supports and in which endpoint.
Endpoint 1 has Level Control, OnOff, Touchlink, and other clusters of interest
c. Have the bulbs near the Aurora Dimmer. My Bulbs are at most 10 feet away
Goto Z2M-UI Aurora Dimmer and goto the Bind Tab.
a. There are an empty set of boxes available for adding a new binding entry (don’t mess with the existing binding with the Coordinator). I set mine as follows:
Source Endpoint =1
Destination = “My Philips Hue 1”
Destination Endpoint = 11
LevelCtrl = ticked (all other clusters unticked)
b.Click on “Bind” button and quickly (within a couple of seconds),
go over to the Aurora Dimmer and tap the switch to wake it up.
It should show in the UI that the binding of LevelCtrl was successful.
Around 20 seconds later you may get a failure indicator regarding Change Reports failed to be setup, but this doesn’t seem to matter.
Only binding the LevelCtrl to the Philips Hue worked for me. Any other combination of clusters to bind would be successful at binding, but left the Aurora Dimmer unable to actually control the Philips Hue (nothing would happen when tapping/dimming). As an FYI, this HA Community Forum user was successful with their IKEA bulbs by binding LevelCtrl, OnOff, and Touchlink clusters with their IKEA Bulbs. So which clusters to bind may vary depending on your situation.
I should also add that I wanted the same Aurora Dimmer to control a second Philips Hue bulb, so I repeated the process above for the second bulb. It may have been possible to put the bulbs in a ZigBee Group and to have done the binding on the Group, but I did not try this.
I had the same problem with updated Zigbee2MQTT. The last reply almost worked for me. However, I noticed action_level goes to “null” when I turn the dimmer on by pressing the button. That wasn’t working. You can’t test for null as a value as far as I can tell. I beat my head against it for a while until realizing that you can make turning on via null the “default action” and make the brightness adjustment a second option. Also I like using entity names instead of a device id since I control multiple lights with my dimmer. Here is my version. As above you have to edit your topic and the target entity IDs to match your dimmer and lights.
Hi all, the most recent reply here was working for me but wasn’t ideal for use with adaptive lighting or when also controlling via a second source (in my case a pico remote).
The above automation bypassed adaptive lighting (when take_over_control is enabled) and turned the lights to full brightness everytime.
Using the pico remote sometimes resulted in the states getting misaligned which would require a couple clicks to turn the lights off, which can be annoying if you already started walking away before realizing the lights didn’t actually turn off.
Fixing the adaptive lighting compatibility isn’t too hard, you just need to send no brightness value when turning the lights on and enable adapt_only_on_bare_turn_on. Unfortunately, preventing the occasional need for double clicks required a bit of a hack. The configuration below relies on the transition_time of the mqtt command to differentiate between button clicks and twisting the knob to know if I’m trying to toggle the light or adjust the brightness. It is of course subject to break if the values being sent for the transition time ever change or aren’t the same for you.
Known issues
Sometimes the light seems to get “stuck” at a certain level and I need to twist the knob in the opposite direction or wait a second to get it unstuck. Not sure why this happens but I’ll post an update if I mange to figure it out.
P.S. I used ChatGPT to create this and I’m new to fiddling with HA yaml so feedback is welcome. Hope this is helpful!
alias: Living Room Lights Dimmer Automation
description: Control lights from Lutron Aurora via Zigbee2MQTT (click-to-toggle + dimmer rules)
mode: restart
variables:
# ---- EDIT THESE FOR YOUR SETUP ----
lights_target:
- light.living_room_lights
mqtt_topic: zigbee2mqtt/Switch - Kitchen 1
# -----------------------------------
# Payload helpers (no need to edit)
lvl: >-
{% if trigger and trigger.payload_json.action_level is defined %}
{{ trigger.payload_json.action_level }}
{% elif trigger and trigger.payload_json.brightness is defined %}
{{ trigger.payload_json.brightness }}
{% else %}
{{ none }}
{% endif %}
t: "{{ trigger.payload_json.action_transition_time | default(0) if trigger else 0 }}"
act: "{{ trigger.payload_json.action | default('') if trigger else '' }}"
is_click: >-
{{ act == 'brightness_move_to_level' and (t | float(0) >= 0.06) }}
trigger:
- platform: mqtt
# NOTE: templates aren't supported here; keep this literal.
topic: zigbee2mqtt/Switch - Kitchen 1
condition:
- condition: template
value_template: "{{ trigger.payload_json.action == 'brightness_move_to_level' }}"
action:
- choose:
# A) CLICK toggle behavior
- conditions:
- condition: template
value_template: "{{ is_click and expand(lights_target) | selectattr('state','eq','on') | list | count > 0 }}"
sequence:
- service: light.turn_off
target:
entity_id: "{{ lights_target }}"
data:
transition: "{{ t | float(0) }}"
- conditions:
- condition: template
value_template: "{{ is_click and expand(lights_target) | selectattr('state','eq','on') | list | count == 0 }}"
sequence:
- service: light.turn_on
target:
entity_id: "{{ lights_target }}"
data:
transition: "{{ t | float(0) }}"
# B) DIMMER: all targets OFF → turn ON (no brightness)
- conditions:
- condition: template
value_template: >
{{ not is_click and expand(lights_target) | selectattr('state','eq','on') | list | count == 0 }}
sequence:
- service: light.turn_on
target:
entity_id: "{{ lights_target }}"
data:
transition: "{{ t | float(0) }}"
# C) DIMMER: some ON and level == 0 → turn OFF
- conditions:
- condition: template
value_template: >
{{ not is_click and (lvl | int(0) == 0) and expand(lights_target) | selectattr('state','eq','on') | list | count > 0 }}
sequence:
- service: light.turn_off
target:
entity_id: "{{ lights_target }}"
data:
transition: "{{ t | float(0) }}"
# D) DIMMER: otherwise set the provided brightness
default:
- choose:
- conditions:
- condition: template
value_template: "{{ not is_click and (lvl is not none) }}"
sequence:
- service: light.turn_on
target:
entity_id: "{{ lights_target }}"
data:
brightness: "{{ lvl | int }}"
transition: "{{ t | float(0) }}"
default: []
Kudos to you, Joey. And all that came before, as well.
That is to say, this worked so well for me that I need to cool my jets. With 15 or so Aurora’s throughout the home, I’m excited to see how well this can work out for all of 'em.
