Color bulb color not reverting to previous color after rule runs

Power & Lighting
1

I hope I can make my situation understood - it seems a bit confusing when I try to explain it to myself.

6 months ago, I created a rule (the “sunset” rule) that turns on some color bulbs each night at sunset, and turns them off a few hours later. That rule does not specify the color or brightness, and it just uses whatever the current color is set to, which happens to be yellow right now. This “sunset” rule has been working without issue for the past 6 months.

2 months ago, I created another rule (the “flash” rule), that on motion detected by a V3 camera late at night after the first rule has turned the bulbs off, it flashes these bulbs in different colors of blue and green, to alert me of the late night motion. This flash rule has been working with no issues, and the sunset rule continues to turn the lights on yellow, even though the “flash” rule colors are green and blue and the sunset rule does not specify a specific color.

In other words, the color of the bulbs when the sunset rule runs is still yellow, even though it does not specify a specific color, and even if the flash rule runs late at night and flashes the lights in blue and green.

This weekend, I created a third rule (the “sunrise” rule), that turns these same bulbs on for 2 hours before sunrise (it is still dark when I get up, and I don’t want to trip down the stairs in the dark), and specifically sets the color to white during that time. This rule also works as expected.

But now when the the sunset rule runs, the lights turn on white even though the current bulbs setting is still yellow, and even if the flash rule has run in the middle of the night and flashed the lights to blue and green.

If the flash rule specifies specific colors of blue and green, but that does not change the bulb color setting when the sunset rule runs, then why does the sunrise rule, which specifies a color of white, change the bulb color setting to white when the sunset rule runs?

The sunset and sunrise rules are “schedule” rules, and the flash rule is a trigger rule. But it seems that when any type of rule runs, it should not change the normal/default color that the bulbs are set to in the bulb configuration settings.

Am I missing something here, that some rules change the current bulb color setting, and other types of rules do not? is it supposed to work that way?

2

Oh, and the color bulbs are on firmware version 1.2.0.508, which the app and the release notes report as the latest firmware version for these color bulbs.

And I am using Android app version 2.38.1 (161), which the release notes page indicates is the latest Android app version.

3

I’d say that is expected behavior. The “color blink” action is a temporary action that is sent to the bulbs. It blinks a color a few times then reverts to it’s precious state, to which in your use case is yellow.

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On your last rule with the white color. Your action is to change the color white, which is a one time rule that changes the color of the bulb. I’d expect the same behavior with brightness action. It sets it to your chosen setting. As a fix for your rule I would add a “change color to ‘yellow’” action to your first rule, or which ever rule you want the yellow to be.

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4

The “color blink” action is a temporary action … then reverts to its previous state

I was hoping that the “sunrise” rule would also be considered like that, since it has a start and a stop time, and the stop reverses the start.

But reading the wording n the rule closer, it says that only actions “with an inverse”, such as On/Off, are run at the end time, and setting the color to white does not have an “inverse” (set it to black?). I was hoping that the inverse action would mean to set it back to its previous color.

Thanks for pointing out this distinction.

5

This only applies if you set an end time on a schedule rule. I believe only on and off rules count, not set color

6

Yep, that is exactly what I am seeing.

The rule has an end time, and it does turn the lights off, but I guess it makes sense that color and brightness actions do not have “inverse” actions, so the end rule just turns them off, and nothing else.

The app says that “Actions with an inverse (e.g. On/Off) run at the Start Time with the inverse at the End Time. Single actions run at the Start Time”.

It only gives On/Off as an example, and does not describe what other actions have inverse actions, probably because that should be obvious.

It would be nice if the “inverse” of setting the color and brightness, was to restore them back to their previous settings. If you didn’t want the color to revert at the end time, just like you didn’t want them to turn off at the end time, then you would not specify an end time (since it is optional).

But reverting these other settings to their previous values, is not an obvious “inverse” action, so it makes sense as it is.

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