Controll switches instead?

[teras]

Hello

I tried your integration which seemed a really cool idea for me. Well done.
But, unfortunately for my scenario I think I can't use it.

My setup is a follows. My living room has ~6 lights which lighten the area. All of them are switches. The idea was to incrementally turn on the switches when I need more light in the room. Right now I do it manually. Based on my needs I turn on and off switches to achieve the level of light I want. I thought it would be a great idea to use something like your plugin (which to be honest didn't think about this kind of solution until I saw it).

When I tried to integrate it, my switches weren't available; only my (irrelevant) dimmable lights. Is this something you will think of implementing in the future? Or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks for the wonderful idea anyway :)

[MacrosorcH]

@teras What you describe used to be a supported usecase: you could create a Lightener also for a set of switch lights (on/off, non-dimmable) and still have the set working as a dimmable light group. For some reason, this is not working anymore in the latest version 2.1.2, which in this scenario only allows to control the light group as an on/off switch. However, it does work just fine on version 2.0.0 (tested now), in which the group is instead created as a dimmable entity.

@fredck Any chance the old behavior could be restored? It is very convenient and extends the usefulness of this integration a lot. Many thanks!

[MacrosorcH]

@teras By the way, if your lights are 'switch' entities, you can use "Switch as X" helpers to turn them into proper 'light' entities (so that they can be selected in Lightener).
https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/switch_as_x/

[teras]

Interesting plugin, didn't know its existence.

@MacrosorcH since you are more experienced. My light switches are all zigbee, I am using zigbee2mqtt and I have left the default behavior to be a switch, not a light. I think I have the ability to change this behavior "in the source itself". Do you believe this is better as an approach, or should I use the switch_as_x integration instead?

[MacrosorcH]

@teras If you can change it in the source, it's definitely the cleanest approach, because switch_as_x would duplicate your switch entity creating a corresponding light entity, and then basically you can hide the switch and leave only the light.

[teras]

Following your suggestions, I converted my (light) switches to light entities, thus my lights indeed are available for selection. Using the light card though, there is no dimmable option. When I "turn on", all lights turn on, and when I turn off, again all lights turn off, but I still not have the effect of incremental brightness.

For reference, the UI card is defined as below:

type: light
entity: light.living_room

[fredck]

Using the light card though, there is no dimmable option. When I "turn on", all lights turn on, and when I turn off, again all lights turn off, but I still not have the effect of incremental brightness.

@teras the reason behind the issue you describe here has been expanded at #30 and it is now solved since the release of v2.2.0

[fredck]

When it comes to the general idea of supporting entities other than lights, I admit that was taken into consideration during the initial "napkin concept" of Lightener. Not only were switches considered, but also covers, fans, and anything else that can have an "on/off" state or a "range level" (e.g., the degree to which a curtain is open).

After the first implementation (v1), which only supported lights (and switches accidentally), I realized that expanding it to other devices would make the integration's purpose much more obscure. Focusing solely on lights makes the scope very clear and helps optimize resources.

@MacrosorcH's suggestion to transform switches into "real" lights makes a lot of sense. It fixes the semantics of both the switch and its corresponding light, allowing both to be controlled in different ways within ha.

Therefore, for the time being, there is no intention to expand support for entities other than lights within Lightener.

I'm closing this issue, but of course, the channel to discuss it further will always be available here.

Thank you all for your participation!

[teras]

Thank you for the fix. For the time being I updated my entities from switches to lights. Indeed this is a fuzzy semantic: should a switch that manages a light be considered as a light? But it's actually a switch, not a light.

Taking these apart, maybe at the end of the day it makes more sense to use it as lights, even actually being switches, because the reason you have the switch is to control the light.

For now I am happy with the provided solution, once more thank you and I'll wait when the update will be available through HACS.