Controlling multiple dimmable lights

[seb303]

We have lots of rooms where there are multiple identical lights (usually downlights), and when dimming all lights need to be dimmed together (there is almost never a case where individual identical lights need to be set to a different brightness).  It is also often desirable to choose which lights are on or off, via scenes.

This must be a common situation, so how do others handle this?  I haven't been able to figure out an elegant way to do this with Loxone.  I've ended up using a Lighting Controller + Dimmer + Analogue Multiplexer for each light.  And then various control logic to direct the types of button press to the relevant block inputs.  Repeated for every room, this makes an overly complex config IMO.

Sometimes there is 1 wall button available to control the set of lights, sometimes 3.  This is the typical functionality:

1 button available:
- short press: lights on/off
- short press within 5 seconds of lights on: next scene
- long press: brighter or dimmer
- double press: all on at full brightness

3 buttons available:
- short press of any button: lights on
- short press of top or bottom button: lights off
- short press of middle (smaller) button: next scene
- long press of top button: brighter
- long press of bottom button: dimmer

[Karl Peterson]

I only use one button to control the lights in any room in my house.

Every room (whether it has only one light controlled by a relay, or a dozen different dimmers) runs off a Lighting Controller.

The button I am using for lighting in a room goes to the next scene (+) input on the Lighting Controller

I am excluding both All On and All Off scenes in the scroll. So while a tap can turn the lights on, or proceed to the next scene it can't turn them off.

The next scene (+) input on the lighting controller allows for double tap to turn off. So that is what I am doing.

I set my scenes up in such a way as the first tap gets you to the most commonly used lighting scene for that room. Subsequent taps takes you into progressively less common scenes. I try and make sure there is no more than 5 scenes in any room.

If I need any more granular control than offered by the 5 scenes above, I open my app and manually set the lighting controller to whatever combination of lighting levels I want. I can also helpfully save those levels to the scene memory for later recall if I like.

In order to promote consistency of operation, I have taken to using the single tap for on, double tap for off on all of my controls. Ceiling Fans, Blinds, even bath ventilation fans work as follows:

If Off:

Single tap turns on with 3 minute timer

Double tap turns on with no timer

If On:

Double tap turns off (whether you are using a timer or not).

I am using loxone touch switches, so that means if you walk into any room in my house, and press the big button you will get light. You can keep pressing it and get different looks (so long as there are dimmers or multiple circuits in that room). You can double tap it and it will turn off.

I tried it a few ways, and this seems to work better than any of the others I tried.

-Karl P

[seb303]

Hi Karl,

Thanks for your response.  Your functionality seems to fit well with how the Lighting Controller works.  For me, the main thing that is missing is the ability to simultaneously dim or brighten all lights in the current scene (e.g. by a long press of the button) - this is something we often find ourselves adjusting to suit the current mood, time of day etc.  Even using the App, there's no convenient way to do this with a Lighting Controller - one has to set the brightness of each light individually.

So that's how I ended up with the somewhat convoluted solution involving a Lighting Controller + Dimmer + multiple Analogue Multiplexers + button press logic.  It wouldn't be so bad if one could repeat the functionality easily for each room.  I considered writing the lighting logic into a Custom Progam, but then these are limited to 8 instances (and already a few of these instances are used for other things).

I was just hoping someone had found a more elegant solution :)

[Karl Peterson]

Why not just have multiple scenes at your different brightness levels and cycle through?

It took me 3 or 4 weeks to figure out all the "common" brightness levels I wanted in any room. Since then I have only opened the app to create a bespoke scene a few times a year.

-Karl

[seb303]

On Sunday, November 20, 2016 at 2:21:42 AM UTC, Karl Peterson wrote:

Why not just have multiple scenes at your different brightness levels and cycle through?

With various lights around the room that could be on or off, multiplied by the desired brightness levels (which sometimes vary from family member to family member), I found it made for too many button pushes to do it by scene alone, especially for users who haven't memorised the sequence of scenes.

There are also other situations where a 'global' control of brightness is desirable: for example, the PiR operated lights in our hallways and bathrooms are programmed to progressively dim from dusk onwards, so they don't come on at dazzling brightness when one gets up to use the toilet in the middle of the night (whereas in early evening, one does generally want these lights to come on brightly).

I am managing to achieve this functionality, but at the expense of an overly complex config that is a pain to replicate from room to room.   It's frustrating it can't be done more easily with the stock modules like the Lighting Controller.

[Duncan]

this may not be much simpler than yours - but heres my scheme for 1 and 2 buttons to allow dimmable scenes with multiple extra functions as required - hope it helps

[seb303]

Thanks Duncan.  Good to see how you've done it.  I like that you've used the Multiply block rather than Analogue Multiplexer to 'merge' the Dimmer and Lighting Controller outputs.  This makes the config a bit neater / more compact.

I think you could get rid of the Divide block on the front of the Dimmer, by setting the Max and Step parameters accordingly.

Also, on the single button version, couldn't you replace the Analogue memory, Push switch & Multi-click blocks with a single Switch-on delay?

[Duncan]

there must be a million variations for solutions to this - i added the multiclick as theoretical solution to be able to do other stuff such as play/pause music, blinds etc, all using a single light switch per room.

the posted file was simply a proof of concept for a conversation with loxone who were insisting that it couldnt be done....

[seb303]

On Monday, November 21, 2016 at 1:18:22 PM UTC, Duncan wrote:

there must be a million variations for solutions to this - i added the multiclick as theoretical solution to be able to do other stuff such as play/pause music, blinds etc, all using a single light switch per room.

the posted file was simply a proof of concept for a conversation with loxone who were insisting that it couldnt be done....

Sure :)
I was just suggesting some possible optimisations.  Always nice to find the simplest solution, hence why I started this thread in the first place.

Cheers,
Seb

[Duncan]

Seb,
thanks for the optimisations - didnt mean to sound ungrateful