Change dimmer granularity of Blue 2-1 switch?

Switches General Discussion
#1

Right now, with a Blue 2-1 dimmer switch, I can hold the buttons to change the light brightness with high levels of granularity. Anywhere from 0 to 100%.

Is there a way I can change the switch, so that it only operates at six different levels? 0, 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100%? So holding the buttons to change will jump between those levels and nothing in between?

#2

AFAIK, natively, no. But easy to do with an automation if you’re willing to accept taps instead of a press.

#3

Yes. I actually prefer taps. How would I do this?

#4

Turn on local protection so that the switch does not control the wired load.

Then configure a series of automations for taps. For example, one tap up set the switch to 20%, two taps up set the switch to 40%, etc.

One tap down, turn the switch off.

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#5

You could even get smarter if you use if else statements. If switch is at 0%, 1 tap turns on to 20%, if switch is at 20%, 1 tap turns switch to 40% etc…

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#6

Thanks guys… this was really helpful! This is what I came up with:

alias: Office Light (Up) 20%
description: ""
trigger:
  - device_id: 347c9e538df1e4e7b6f7cc449dee3a91
    domain: zha
    platform: device
    type: press
    subtype: Up
action:
  - if:
      - condition: numeric_state
        entity_id: light.light_switch_office_light
        attribute: brightness
        above: 250
    then:
      - service: light.turn_on
        data:
          brightness_pct: 20
        target:
          device_id: 347c9e538df1e4e7b6f7cc449dee3a91
    else:
      - service: light.turn_on
        data:
          brightness_step_pct: 20
        target:
          device_id: 347c9e538df1e4e7b6f7cc449dee3a91
mode: single

Every time you hit the “up” paddle, it adds 20% to the brightness. If the brightness is already at 100%, it sets it to 20%.

2 Likes
#7

I do have some issues with this though…

1 - there is a “delay” on the switch. I can’t just fast cycle between the brightness levels. I have to wait for HA to handle the previous click before I do the next one.

2- what happens if my HA server is down? Will my light switch no longer function since I have local protection enabled?

#8

Also… what exactly does “local protection” do?

I have seen no difference between having it enabled and disabled.

#9

Local protection turned on prevents the switch from physically controlling the wired load. So with local protection enabled, presses of the paddle will not have any effect on the wired bulbs.

The reason you turned local protection on for the automation that you designed is because you do not want the paddle presses to allow the switch to physically control the load. You want the switch to only send the paddle press information to the hub which in turn sends directions back to the switch.

So yes, with local protection on and a reliance of the automations to control the load, you are dogmeat if the hub goes down.

#10

Well leaving it off seemed to make no difference… and also has the advantage of having the switch fallback to being a regular dimmer if the hub goes down. So I have left it off.

#11

The automation should still work fine, as you noted. The only difference with protection on or off is that with it off, press and hold will still dim the light up and down. I guess it depends upon if you just want to be locked into the levels defined in your automation, or if levels set via press and hold in between those automation defined levels are ok.