Command to adjust brightness and color while light is off

[extended-static]

Integration name

light

Link to integration documentation on our website

No response

Describe the enhancement

It would be helpful if we could control the color temperature and brightness of a light while the light is off. Specifically, this should be possible without sending a light.turn_on command.

It would probably be best to implement this capability as a new command or attribute, instead of as a feature of the existing light.turn_on, light.turn_off, or light.toggle commands.

Additionally, it would be helpful to have some mechanism to determine whether or not this capability is supported by the device.

Use cases

This feature would allow Adaptive Lighting to adjust color temperature and brightness while lights are off. The benefit is that the lights will come up to their desired state, even when Adaptive Lighting is unable to intercept a light.turn_on command.

The main reason I request this feature is because of Matter bindings. When I turn my lights on using a binding, there is no light.turn_on command to intercept. The lights come up at their last setting, and then fade to the desired one. This is inelegant, and can be irritating when they come up at full brightness in the middle of the night.

For this use case, it might be helpful if HA also maintained the color and level attributes of the light when off. This would support the skip_redundent_commands option provided by adaptive lighting.

Anything else?

I'm not clear on whether or not all smart lighting ecosystems support this capability.

From my research, the ability to set brightness and color while the light is off is an implied requirement as of Matter 1.0. The various MoveToLevel and MoveToColor commands have required OptionsMask and OptionsOverride fields that specifically address this behavior.

I haven't looked into Zigbee, Z-Wave, or other ecosystems. I would be happy to contribute research if it would be helpful.

https://github.com/orgs/home-assistant/discussions/3949 is a similar feature request. My request is more generalized. I also provide a specific problem statement and use case.

[github-actions[bot]]

🏷️ I've automatically added the integration: light label to help categorize this feature request.

[Petro31]

Typically hardware does not support this, that's the main reason this has never been added. FYI

[extended-static]

Typically hardware does not support this, that's the main reason this has never been added. FYI

As I mentioned in my initial comment, this feature seems to be required by the matter standards. The flags required to change color and level while the light is off are mandatory, and I didn't see anything in the documentation that describes how to communicate or handle lack of support for this capability.

I can confirm that it's supported by the Nanoleaf Essentials A19/A60 bulbs and the Inovelli VTM31-SN dimmers I use.

I wrote some shell functions to help test for this capability. If you happen to have access to matter lights from other manufacturers, it would be great to see your results.

# Functions

get_mired_range() {
	[ -z "${NODE}" ] && { echo '$NODE not set'; return; }
	[ -z "${ENDPOINT}" ] && { echo '$ENDPOINT not set'; return; }
	[ -z "${MATTER}" ] && { echo '$MATTER not set'; return; }
        echo -n 'Min Mired: '
        cat <<-EOF | jq -cr . | websocat ${MATTER} -tn --max-messages-rev 2 | jq -sc '.[1].result."1/768/16395"'
	{
        	"message_id": "1",
        	"command": "read_attribute",
        	"args": {
	        	"node_id": ${NODE},
        		"attribute_path": "${ENDPOINT}/768/16395",
        		"timed_request_timeout_ms": 1000
        	}
        }
	EOF
        echo -n 'Max Mired: '
        cat <<-EOF | jq -cr . | websocat ${MATTER} -tn --max-messages-rev 2 | jq -sc '.[1].result."1/768/16396"'
        {
		"message_id": "2",
		"command": "read_attribute",
		"args": {
			"node_id": ${NODE},
			"attribute_path": "${ENDPOINT}/768/16396",
			"timed_request_timeout_ms": 1000
		}
	}
	EOF
}

set_color_temp() {
	[ -z "${1}" ] && { echo 'Arg should be a color temperature in Mireds. A value between 182 and 370 should be good'; return; }
	[ -z "${NODE}" ] && { echo '$NODE not set'; return; }
	[ -z "${ENDPOINT}" ] && { echo '$ENDPOINT not set'; return; }
	[ -z "${MATTER}" ] && { echo '$MATTER not set'; return; }
	cat <<-EOF | tee /dev/stderr | jq -cr . | websocat ${MATTER} -tn --max-messages-rev 2
	{
		"message_id": "1",
		"command": "device_command",
		"args": {
			"node_id": ${NODE},
			"endpoint_id": ${ENDPOINT},
			"cluster_id": 768,
			"command_name": "MoveToColorTemperature",
			"payload": {
				"colorTemperatureMireds": ${1},
				"transitionTime": 0,
				"optionsMask": 1,
				"optionsOverride": 1
			},
			"timed_request_timeout_ms": 1000
		}
	}
	EOF
}

set_level() {
	[ -z "${1}" ] && { echo 'Arg should be a level between 0 and 254'; return; }
	[ -z "${NODE}" ] && { echo '$NODE not set'; return; }
	[ -z "${ENDPOINT}" ] && { echo '$ENDPOINT not set'; return; }
	[ -z "${MATTER}" ] && { echo '$MATTER not set'; return; }
	cat <<-EOF | tee /dev/stderr | jq -cr . | websocat ${MATTER} -tn --max-messages-rev 2
	{
		"message_id": "1",
		"command": "device_command",
		"args": {
			"node_id": ${NODE},
			"endpoint_id": ${ENDPOINT},
			"cluster_id": 8,
			"command_name": "MoveToLevel",
			"payload": {
				"level": ${1},
				"transitionTime": 0,
				"optionsMask": 1,
				"optionsOverride": 1
			},
			"timed_request_timeout_ms": 1000
		}
	}
	EOF
}

toggle_light() {
	[ -z "${NODE}" ] && { echo '$NODE not set'; return; }
	[ -z "${ENDPOINT}" ] && { echo '$ENDPOINT not set'; return; }
	[ -z "${MATTER}" ] && { echo '$MATTER not set'; return; }
	cat <<-EOF | tee /dev/stderr | jq -cr . | websocat ${MATTER} -tn --max-messages-rev 2
	{
		"message_id": "1",
		"command": "device_command",
		"args": {
			"node_id": ${NODE},
			"endpoint_id": ${ENDPOINT},
			"cluster_id": 6,
			"command_name": "Toggle",
			"timed_request_timeout_ms": 1000
		}
	}
	EOF
}

Usage:

# From a BASH shell, such as your HA device.

# Install websocket package
apk update
apk add websocat

# Set matter API endpoint, Node ID, and Light Endpoint
MATTER="ws://homeassistant.local:5580/ws"
NODE=71
ENDPOINT=1

# Get min and max mireds (color temp)
get_mired_range

# Turn off the light, disable adaptive lighting

# Set a low light level and cool color
set_level 32
set_color_temp 182 # Day White

# Check if setting were applied while light was off
toggle_light

# Turn light off
toggle_light

# Set a brightness level and bright color
set_level 254
set_color_temp 370 # Warm White

# Check if setting were applied while light was off
toggle_light

[extended-static]

I dug through the Zigbee specifications. Google dug up some comments comments saying the spec requires the light to ignore LevelControl and Move Color commands when off. But I couldn't find anything in the cluster specifications supporting that claim (I looked as far back as Revision 2.

Revision 7 integrates the ZLO specification, and has a fairly extensive table describing how Move commands should be handled when a device is off. Revision 7 and 8 support flags similar to Matter. As far as I can tell, the ability to change color and brightness while the light is off is required by the most recent versions of the spec.

I looked at the Z-Wave specifications, and didn't see anything conclusive one way or the other.

I happen to have a z-wave dimmer plug handy and was able to do some experimentation.

The Z-Wave command specification doesn't provide a method to set the brightness level without turning the switch on. Some manufacturers offer a "Default Level" (or similar) configuration parameter that would achieve the desired result. For example, Inovelli has Parameter 13 and 14 on the VZW31-SN dimmer.

I might be able to mine the parameters for various manufacturers from online device databases.

As far as color is concerned... There don't appear to be very many Z-Wave bulbs on the market, so the question is more or less moot.

[extended-static]

It's possible to test whether or not your Matter bulb supports this capability without using the command line. The latest versions of the Matter integration can send MoveToLevel commands through the UI.

I noticed an odd bug while testing this... MoveToLevel will cause the CurrentLevel attribute to change immediately, but the OnLevel attribute doesn't change until the light is turned off. As a result, the MoveToLevel command doesn't take effect until I toggle the light On, Off, and On again. I suspect this is a matter server bug?

MoveToColor can also be tested using the UI, so long as you enable developer mode (e.g. http://homeassistant.local:8123/core_matter_server?dev=on)

The following payloads work nicely:

Cool White:

{
  "colorTemperatureMireds": 182,
  "transitionTime": 0,
  "optionsMask": 1,
  "optionsOverride": 1
}

Warm White:

{
  "colorTemperatureMireds": 182,
  "transitionTime": 0,
  "optionsMask": 1,
  "optionsOverride": 1
}

I encountered no issues running these tests.

[extended-static]

I picked up an inexpensive Zigbee smart bulb (Third Reality, Inc 3RCB01057Z) and confirmed that Zigbee also supports setting the level and color while the bulb is off.

It's straight forward to test this via the "Manage Zigbee Device" UI in HA.

[extended-static]

Interesting note... The Matter light component already sets the OptionsOverride flags necessary to change the light color while the light is off. This was added to fix a bug.

https://github.com/home-assistant/core/blob/dev/homeassistant/components/matter/light.py#L121-L132

So, I'm basically asking for that, but available without sending a light.turn_on command. And for Level as well as Color. And for other smart protocols. 😆