Hi all, I’m having an issue with my pair of White Series dimmers. When I issue a HomeKit command (either via Siri or from the Home app) to turn on my lights at a specific brightness, the brightness is ignored. That is, from off, if I say “Siri, set lights 10%” they simply turn on at their last brightness. If I repeat the exact command, they’ll go to the given brightness. But they won’t do it from off and it’s frankly really irritating me to be in a dark room at night, ask my lights to come on at a low level of brightness, and be blasted with 100% brightness first! This isn’t a HomeKit issue, as the same commands work with Nanoleaf Thread-enabled bulbs.
Ok and in writing this up I ran some more tests. This specifically only happens when asking to turn the light on at a dimmer setting than it was previously on at. If left at a dim setting, and asked to turn on, it turns on at that setting. Same for bright. If left at a dim setting and asked to turn on brighter, it does so (bonkers considering the next scenario). If left at a bright setting and asked to turn on dimmer, it does not.
It’s really bizarre to do this in the app. Set light to 100%. Turn light off. Tap bar at the 10% mark. Should turn on at 10%, but turns on at 100%, slide bar somewhere else and then back to 10% and then it goes to 10%.
So: why is this happening, and can it be fixed? I really want my lights to just turn on at the brightness issued with the command.
I have confirmed I’m on the latest firmware, version 1.0.5. I also confirmed that the settings “Default Level” and “State After Power Restored” had no effect.
This is only through the Apple Home ecosystem, or is there another hub/platform involved? By default when the switch receives an “on” command it should return to its previous level. If you send an on command with a level, it should go to that level. Is it possible that an on command is sent and then an level command (hard to know what is going on in the background)?
It is just the Apple ecosystem, no other Matter controllers. These switches in fact are what enabled me to turn off my HomeAssistant instance and rely on just Apple Home.
I assume that it’s an “on with level” command being sent, as the same command works correctly with smart bulbs on the same Thread network, and (so weirdly) works correctly with the dimmer switch if that brightness is more than when it was turned off. It just doesn’t work when it’s less.
I did some basic testing. In Apple Home if I turn the light off and then turn it back on by tapping the level on the slider that I want, it goes to the previous level. If I do the same in Home Assistant it works correctly (goes directly to the level that I tap on the slider). I need to see the difference in commands between the two platforms.
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Thanks for investigating! That sounds like the same problem.
I asked the engineer to check the logs on the switch to see what commands are sent and he said he would but is currently working on other issues. I will keep you posted.
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