Slowly dim lights up and down?

Hi Homeys!

So the wify and I just bought a new chandelier for our dining table. This monster has twelve (12!) E27 bulbs and since we live in an old house there are no dimmer knob on the wall. Obviously I’m going to use dimable LEDs in the lamp, probably some Zigbee model.

Sure, I could just use IKEA Trådfri and their smart remote to dim the bulbs to the preferred level, but why stop at the basic? :smiley:

I would like to automate some fun light “shows” now that I have twelve bubs to play with. The first that came mind was to divide the bulbs in two sets: 6 x 6 and have one set dim up at the same time as the other set dims down. And doing this really slowly and repeatably in a loop. Lets say dim up from 10% to 30% during one minute and then down the same values, rinse and repeat. This way the lux value in the room would stay constant but the lights would feel dynamic. (I have no idea if this is going to be annoying when having a dinner party, but it would be fun to try.)

Is there a “ramp up during X time period”-function? If not, how would one go about to create a flow for this?

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have a look at Transitions App voor Homey | Homey

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I use this card

Thank you, I’ll check if I can make it work. :+1:

I’m sorry…but I don’t understand that language (Dutch?). :confused:

OK, so I did a quick test with a lamp and remote that is up and running in another flow in another room. This is what I came up with:

It did not work. When I choose to test the flow the only thing that happens is that the bulb dim to the value I chose in the “# Dim level” in the second card. I was expecting the progress bar in the second card to take 60 seconds…but the test runs the second card in about one second and then I get the option to exit. There is no change in the dim level.

What app is that Gijsb?

It is no special app voor transitions but the app from the brand Robb smart. But also the ikea app for the light bulb I use, has this card. It is just the dim to card.

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All I see in IKEAs app are these:

I am using the Chronograph app for this function. Here is an example in Advance Flow.

Starts a 0% and ramps to 70% in 60 steps over 60 seconds using the OfficeDimValue to link the two cards. Reversing the two dim values will dim the lights to off.

Only certain apps/brands/devices have the option “duration” to set the dim-time.
But Ikea should have it.

It’s not visible in the pick list… First add the card ‘dim to’ to a flow, and you’ll discover the duration option there… I might be wrong though, don’t shoot me :rofl:

I did it using the transition app, but I used an additional flow to actually do the transition.

  1. if button pressed - > start transition (which you already have)
  2. if transition changed - > dim light to {local variable set by transition app}

I’m not doing so good here…

I’m looking at this card in the Transitions app:

Skärmavbild 2023-10-03 kl. 15.13.04

which seems to be the card to use. However I can’t really understand how to link it to a specific bulb and its dim value. Also, what is “Transition name”? When I click it I can write anything I like or I can click the little tag and get all the variables.

I feel like such a noob here…sorry. :flushed:

That is initialize the transition. But with each step it also needs to dim the bulbs.

Something like this (sorry for the Dutch language). You need the lowest part of the flow too. (“transition veranderd”)

The middle part is only needed if you want to control the dimming with one button in both direction, so don’t worry about that yet.

For the ikea cards;

Number 4 is the one that works for me

Hi, you got ideas for slow dimming. Therefore, one suggestion to impress with lighting.

Circadian lighting (or dynamic lighting with colours). … different colours at different times. Start morning with energising, bright white at noon, then to relaxing white and et evening for example sunset simulation.

This certainly impresses! But you need e.g. RGB zigbee lamps. all brands have colours but some do better things. We have 15+ philips hue lamps (with their hub) in dining-kitchen-living room. I think technology they use in those dynamic scenes is patented… in Homey have created advanced flow to activate from motion sensors. day is splitted to 5 different times, and since we have 4 seasons in Finland there is also different scenes for all seasons. And for Independence Day and Christmas too…

But… this is expensive too :raised_hands: made mistake to try dynamic lighting some years back and there is no way back to typical lighting :rofl: nowadays all lighting except bedrooms runs with motion sensors. And they provide good scenes for night modes too. With Homey is easy to add new solutions :+1:

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Hi all!

When you’re using the Philips Hue range like I do, there’s a relatieve simple way to do this.
You’ll start by using the card as shown. Press you’re right mouse button (excuse the Dutch language) and there’s your duration :)…

Hope this helps!

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It is really helpful that you all show your flows, but why is it that it always have to in Dutch language?. I am from Denmark and would never show my Danish flows in a forum like this

There’s no rule or such, it just happen to be Dutchies / Belgians sharing those flows.
Unfortunately it’s a PITA to change Homey’s language for just sharing a screenshot.
You can use Ggl Lens to translate images,
I really think shared screenshots should be translated up front by the uploader, it’s 3s of work.
This

becomes this

Even this photograph of a screen translated pretty well:

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