#Using a light switch to turn on only one of 3 lights?

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

open cape
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I have a bathroom light that has 3 bulbs. All of them are smart bulbs. I just put in a smart switch since people dont understand not to touch switches.
Previously I had it set up that when the motion sensor goes off the lights would turn on. I had another condition where after sunset only one light would turn on.

Now i have the sensor turn on the switch. Which turns on all 3 bulbs. Is there a way to have it turn one the switch but only one light turn on?

I feel I could work around by turning on the switch then turning off two of the lights but I feel this is a bad work around if the intention is to not blind you at night.

shy mason
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What kind of switch?
To do this you basically need to make sure it never kills power to the lights. Some brands of switch have "smart bulb mode" to achieve this.

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In that mode the switch sends events to the controller but it does not actually enable/disable the power relay, which is always on.

open cape
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Aqara

shy mason
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If it doesn't have smart bulb mode, the other possibility is to just hardwire the lights to always on (bypass the switch entirely), and then the switch just sits there with no load.
Not all brands of switches like that though.

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Not great if your network falls over though and then you have no way to turn off your lights 😅

open cape
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Yea when I had the dumb switch thats what I did. But people kept turning them off.

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Was hoping there was some sort of data or something else I could do. beside my work around.

shy mason
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Some smart bulbs have a "behavior on power restored after power loss" option you can play with.

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You could make the outer ones stay off when power is restored (if possible).

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But no solution will work perfectly if it involves removing power from smart bulbs... they always take some time to get re-connected after starting cold.

vestal mist
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this is basically why i like dumb bulbs and smart switches - the switches still work if they're dropped from the network for whatever reason

shy mason
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Why you need smart bulbs for a bathroom... what is that achieving?

open cape
shy mason
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Can't get similar effect with 3x dumb dimmable bulbs at 1% dimmed from a smart switch?

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Would be much simpler.

open cape
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Might have to try that actually.

shy mason
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I've had bathrooms with smart dimmers that I program the default on-brightness level based on time of day.

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That's what you're going for.