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Author Topic: Lighting control  (Read 5425 times)

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Offline Mike

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Lighting control
« on: November 01, 2013, 04:57:28 am »
I have several Hues and living whites in my home, and I am looking forward to combine them with the almond+ and motion/light sensors as inputs for lighting settings.
On the part of time based scheduling there are some interesting apps available and I am very curious what the almond+ will provide on this front.

All apps I have seen so far miss the approach to easy realize something I would like to accomplish: separate control of on/of, brightness and color(temperature) conditions.
So the lights can be switched on/of manually, by light level, time based, maybe motion sensor,...
But what lights should switch on and in what condition would be dependent of rules like:
-warm white with slow fade in at dawn.
-cooler white and high brightness towards sunrise.
-switch of after sunrise (if daylight level is high enough).
-switch on if daylight level drops in the evening (start with high brightness cool)
-fade to warmer(or even more colourful) lower light setting at some point in the evening.
-Cinema mode (if video playing in XBMC?)

a part of these things (sunset) are already possible with apps that create scenes, and schedule fades between them. but they miss the boat when the lights are switched on or of in between, or are manually adjusted in between.
It would be nice to see some possibility to see a "default dynamic scene" with these kind of rules that can be reverted to, when light is turned on by any input.
for manual intervention there could be an option to activate a custom scene and pause above scheme for x mins. for example.

Most of the ingredients are there I think, it is just a way of clever programming i guess :)

LGNilsson

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Re: Lighting control
« Reply #1 on: November 01, 2013, 05:19:46 am »
I think a lot of this should be possible, but it also comes down to how much control we'll have over the bulbs. This would be somewhat manufacturer dependent, but at least with the Hue bulbs, I think we should be able to deliver pretty good control. I'll pass on your post to our software team and see what they think is possible to do.
« Last Edit: November 01, 2013, 06:16:22 am by Lars »

Offline eldaria

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Re: Lighting control
« Reply #2 on: November 01, 2013, 05:34:51 am »
Hmm, I don't see why this should not be possible.

I don't know how the UI will be on the Almond+, but looking at other systems, Basically a very simple breakdown of function would be "Trigger->Action"

Trigger can be anything, a sensor is activated, a buttons is pushed, time event, weather event, or a combination of them.
Action is what should happen, so a light turns on, or fades in at a certain color/level, etc.

So You could have a scene that is activated by both a time event and a button, or you could have several scenes that are chosen depending on your criteria on time, trigger, etc.

I suspect Almond+ will have a very similar system and hopefully a very easy to use GUI for building this, I even think that it would be possible to create your own system if you would like. ;-)

Offline Mike

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Re: Lighting control
« Reply #3 on: November 01, 2013, 05:01:53 pm »
Some of it looks pretty straightforward i guess, but i have no experience with actual home automation yet. I hope it will be easy to create a hierarchy of rules taking also in account base scenarios like "leaving home" so no light events are triggered while absent, or "i'm awake" triggers different rules then "im back home" or "i need to do something, give some extra light untill/for x mins"

Presence detection via mobile phones wifi could/should be an option as well, leaving and coming back home can be"uniquely easily" detected by the almond+. Via the app it coukd also integrate with/replace the alarm clock to trigger pre and post wake up events.

Currently im very happy to be able to use the living whites remote control (in a customwallmounted way) as a clever lightswitch. It uses direct zigbee commands to the bulbs i guess. Currently i'm expecting the almond will support hue over ip. But can i expect there to be any support for the living white (or living color) remote as well? Im affraid there are some issues regarding tbe zigbee HA vs lighting profile? Perhaps you could give some insight?

 I hate using my phone for all light adjustments, in my opinion hue does not get to its full potential without such physical interaction accesories, which in combination with the almond+ can be any type of input, of course

Sorry, lighting is a bit of a proffesional deformation interest of me and additionally im suffering from heavy seasonal depression and proper day light simulation ligthing helps me a lot to stay focussed or get to sleep,  wake up etc. I really missed a preview of the home automation options in the latest update, hope you can reveal some more regarding this next time :)
« Last Edit: November 01, 2013, 05:55:00 pm by Mike »

 

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