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Lutron Maestro "slow dim" function with Harmony remote?

post #1 of 21
3/23/08 at 9:04am
Thread Starter 
I've spent a good deal of time looking, and while I found one post that asked this question, there was no answer given.

I just bought a Lutron Maestro IR dimmer switch. I'm very happy with it for the most part. The one thing I haven't been able to do is simulate the "slow dimming" function you get by holding down the large down button on the remote.

I've tried setting interkey delay to 0ms, and setting up a sequence with a series of "Down button" presses. That sequence just acts like a series of discrete button presses, not the 'hold' action you get with the remote.

Has anyone solved this problem for the Harmony?
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post #2 of 21
3/23/08 at 11:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by StewLG View Post

I've spent a good deal of time looking, and while I found one post that asked this question, there was no answer given.

I just bought a Lutron Maestro IR dimmer switch. I'm very happy with it for the most part. The one thing I haven't been able to do is simulate the "slow dimming" function you get by holding down the large down button on the remote.

I've tried setting interkey delay to 0ms, and setting up a sequence with a series of "Down button" presses. That sequence just acts like a series of discrete button presses, not the 'hold' action you get with the remote.

Has anyone solved this problem for the Harmony?

Do you mean just brighten or dim functionality? If you just touch the soft button and continue to touch it, it acts like a dimmer. So if you continually touch the "dim" soft button, the lights dim and will continue to dim as long as you keep touching the button. And the same thing for the "bright" button -- touching it will continue to brighten the lights.

If you have it on "hard" buttons on your Harmony, I would imagine holding the physical button down would do the same thing.

If you already have your lights set to go off taking "x" number of seconds with one button press of the "off" button on the lutron remote, then the "lights off" button on the Harmony would work the same way. If it doesn't, have the Harmony learn that button press.
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post #3 of 21
3/23/08 at 2:00pm
Thread Starter 
Caesar:

Thanks for your reply. That isn't quite what I'm talking about; maybe I wasn't clear.

I'll quote the behavior I'm talking about directly from the sheet that comes with the light:

----------------

Press and hold when unit is on

Each time dimmer is turned off delayed fade to OFF can be activated. As the tap button is held, the LEDs will begin to flash. The first flashing LED represents a 10 second fade to OFF. Each additional flashing LED represents an additional 10 seconds of delay before lights fade to OFF (up to 60 seconds of delay).

---------------------

So, to rephrase the above, if you hold the tap button on the switch (or the down button on the remote) for approximately 7 seconds, I'll get to the second LED position described above, and get a 20 second long fade to off.

I would like to be able to program this sequence into something I can add as a button action as a macro ("Fade to black in 60 seconds"). I can think of a bunch of ways to try and program the Harmony using sequences or macros or raw codes, etc., and I've started fooling around with them. I was just hoping someone had been here before me.

Oh, and I should mention, in case it helps someone else, there IS a potential answer if I choose to reprogram the switch itself. This technique is not great for me because the room with my switch is multi-purpose, and a default 60 second dim fade is going to have absolutely zero WAF, and probably would annoy me most of the time. Still, it might work for someone out there. Check out Lutron Application Note #124 if this interests you:

http://www.lutron.com/applicationnotes/048-123b.pdf

I hope I've been clearer this time, let me know if I haven't.

- Stew
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post #4 of 21
3/23/08 at 3:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by StewLG View Post

Caesar:

Thanks for your reply. That isn't quite what I'm talking about; maybe I wasn't clear.

I'll quote the behavior I'm talking about directly from the sheet that comes with the light:

----------------

Press and hold when unit is on

Each time dimmer is turned off delayed fade to OFF can be activated. As the tap button is held, the LEDs will begin to flash. The first flashing LED represents a 10 second fade to OFF. Each additional flashing LED represents an additional 10 seconds of delay before lights fade to OFF (up to 60 seconds of delay).

---------------------

So, to rephrase the above, if you hold the tap button on the switch (or the down button on the remote) for approximately 7 seconds, I'll get to the second LED position described above, and get a 20 second long fade to off.

I would like to be able to program this sequence into something I can add as a button action as a macro ("Fade to black in 60 seconds"). I can think of a bunch of ways to try and program the Harmony using sequences or macros or raw codes, etc., and I've started fooling around with them. I was just hoping someone had been here before me.

Oh, and I should mention, in case it helps someone else, there IS a potential answer if I choose to reprogram the switch itself. This technique is not great for me because the room with my switch is multi-purpose, and a default 60 second dim fade is going to have absolutely zero WAF, and probably would annoy me most of the time. Still, it might work for someone out there. Check out Lutron Application Note #124 if this interests you:

http://www.lutron.com/applicationnotes/048-123b.pdf

I hope I've been clearer this time, let me know if I haven't.

- Stew

Couldn't you program the switch itself, then learn that to the Harmony -- then unprogram that from the switch itself? So that way the longer fade will work with the Harmony but not at the switch?

Or maybe I dont' understand the whole process.
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post #5 of 21
3/23/08 at 3:39pm
Thread Starter 
Caesar, I'm not sure why we aren't understanding each other very well here. I'm going to assume it is my fault.

One last time at this:

The standard actions on the light switch that turn lights full on, full off, up or down a notch, or to "scene 1" all work fine on the Harmony. They are simple single keypress IR sequences, and the Harmony can emulate them perfectly. (And, again, this is great, and really all I was hoping for with the switch.)

The complex thing I'm trying to reproduce now is whatever happens when a particular button (the down button) is HELD DOWN FOR 5+ SECONDS. This triggers a special, long-delay dim that's not normal. I'm assuming the switch is picking up on a series of closely-spaced messages coming from the remote.

When I've used the learn feature of the Harmony software before, it's had me hold down the button, and I always figured it was parsing out the smallest unique part of the resulting repeating IR sequence. This made me figure it wouldn't be possible to learn this command, and that I'd have to build some kind of macro with closely spaced commands.

I've probably just confused things more, but I still hope that makes sense.
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post #6 of 21
3/23/08 at 3:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by StewLG View Post

Caesar, I'm not sure why we aren't understanding each other very well here. I'm going to assume it is my fault.

One last time at this:

The standard actions on the light switch that turn lights full on, full off, up or down a notch, or to "scene 1" all work fine on the Harmony. They are simple single keypress IR sequences, and the Harmony can emulate them perfectly. (And, again, this is great, and really all I was hoping for with the switch.)

The complex thing I'm trying to reproduce now is whatever happens when a particular button (the down button) is HELD DOWN FOR 5+ SECONDS. This triggers a special, long-delay dim that's not normal. I'm assuming the switch is picking up on a series of closely-spaced messages coming from the remote.

When I've used the learn feature of the Harmony software before, it's had me hold down the button, and I always figured it was parsing out the smallest unique part of the resulting repeating IR sequence. This made me figure it wouldn't be possible to learn this command, and that I'd have to build some kind of macro with closely spaced commands.

I've probably just confused things more, but I still hope that makes sense.

Well I guess I'm confused cause the document you linked to mentions only a max fade off of 15 seconds. I dont' see where it indicates to do what you want it to do.

The document you linked shows how to change defaults of fade on/off times and how to change the presets to locked or unlocked.

And by the way, thank you very much for that link. I've been very annoyed at the lights not always returning to the pre-set level. Now I realize from the document you linked that the default for some odd reason is "unlocked pre-set".

Thanks to you, I've now changed it to "locked pre-set" -- so it will always turn on at the level I set it to now (no matter how the lights are left). I had no idea there was an "advanced programming mode" with these dimmers. That info didn't come with my manual.

Edit: I tried what you mentioned, holding down the tap button for a few seconds -- and I see what it does. I understand what you are talking about now. But it seems more like a delayed off, than a fade, since it happens so slow. But I see how its 10 seconds than 20 seconds, etc.

As far as programming that in the Harmony, I'm not sure how you would do that.
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post #7 of 21
3/23/08 at 4:54pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
And by the way, thank you very much for that link. I've been very annoyed at the lights not always returning to the pre-set level. Now I realize from the document you linked that the default for some odd reason is "unlocked pre-set".

Thanks to you, I've now changed it to "locked pre-set" -- so it will always turn on at the level I set it to now (no matter how the lights are left). I had no idea there was an "advanced programming mode" with these dimmers. That info didn't come with my manual.

Unlike you, my unit came to me with "locked pre-set" as the default, which (like you) isn't what I wanted either. (My wife expects a lightswitch to turn on the lights, all the way on or off.)

But you're quite welcome for the link. I searched quite a bit before I found that, so I figured it would be useful to someone else as well. It *is* mentioned in my flyer, but I ignored it ("To learn more about the Advanced Features of Maestro dimmers including locked preset and adjustable fade times, please visit http://www.lutron.com/maestro/advfeatures or call the Lutron Technical Support Center at +1-800-523-9466").

I'm glad we finally understand each other.

Anyone else have any suggestions for programming a Harmony with a long sequence of a repeating command like this? Or is this a "shoulda got a Crestron" kinda moment?

- Stew
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post #8 of 21
3/23/08 at 8:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by StewLG View Post

Anyone else have any suggestions for programming a Harmony with a long sequence of a repeating command like this? Or is this a "shoulda got a Crestron" kinda moment?

I suggest calling Harmony support. Perhaps they can program it to work that way for you.
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post #9 of 21
3/23/08 at 8:48pm
Please post if Logitech tech support can provide a solution. I have the same dimmer and use this feature before going to bed. Not sure if I would have another time I would use it but wouldnt mind adding it to the remote.
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post #10 of 21
3/24/08 at 10:42am
Thread Starter 
I was very skeptical Logitech would help, but in fact they were extremely helpful, and I was very impressed. The phone support rep I spoke to took about 40 minutes with me, and after a number of rounds of learning and debugging, he custom wrote 3 commands for me, "Slow Dim Slow", "Slow Dim Medium", and "Slow Dim Long". They correspond to dim button holds of about 4, 5, and 6 seconds. They work great.

I asked if he was going to put them in the database, but he said he couldn't, since they are hacks, and he doesn't work in that department. I wish I could paste in the relevant XML command sequences here for you (I got them impression that was what he was looking at), but of course there's no access to any such thing in the end user software right now.

And naturally if anything goes wrong with my account data I'll lose those commands and have to decide if I want to spent 45 minutes getting them reconstructed. But, for now, I'm quite happy.
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post #11 of 21
3/24/08 at 11:52am
Did they give you a case number that i can refer to if i want them to add that to my remote. I'll end up calling and get some lame CSR who says it can't be done no matter how many times I tell them it was done for you.
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post #12 of 21
3/29/08 at 2:37am
if you or Logitech could somehow pass the info on to the rest of us. I was so excited to find this topic...and equally disappointed by finding out it's possible, only by spending 40 minutes on the phone.

I love the slow dim feature...I just don't know if it's worth 40 minutes of my life and some customer support person at Logitech. Isn't the entire point of the database to avoid these types of situations?
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post #13 of 21
3/29/08 at 2:54am
Thread Starter 
One thing I neglected to mention is that I was dealing with a level 2 guy in Toronto - the level 1 guys appear to all be overseas and, in my experience, are just script reading drones.

He cautioned me repeatedly that these commands would be battery intensive, since they are multi-second commands. He was right to warn me, since it is an important consequence of the command that I might not realize. I'm 100% fine with it, and appreciated the warning, but I don't mind since I don't use the "Slow dim" commands terribly often.

I expect that if every CSR - even level 2 - were allowed to put any old thing into the database it would quickly become a big, confusing mess. Still, there should be some way to refer to these additions so that anyone who knew about them could look them up.
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post #14 of 21
3/30/08 at 11:45am
I was able to get level 2 support to add these features to my account. Nice to have the feature on the remote. Be prepared to wait as the level 1 support tries their best to help but in the end after 30+ minutes, you'll end up getting transferred to level 2.

Stew, thanks for the info and letting us know it can be done!
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post #15 of 21
7/16/08 at 8:13am
Thanks for this thread. I installed my Maestro last night and called Level 2 support and they adjusted the software so I could transmit the 3 second "one-touch" button code I needed to program my "Scene1" dimmer level. So far I love the Maestro for use with the Harmony. Well worth $35.00
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post #16 of 21
2/27/13 at 11:26am
Just wondering if anyone is still active on this forum. I could find any way to send a private message. I spent weeks waiting for Logitech to see if they could figure out how to do exactly what is described, even pointing them to this forum as proof that what I wanted was possible. All to no avail, no one could figure out how to program the slow dim.

If you anyone is still active perhaps you could reach out to me via email, voicekiller@yahoo.com, to see if there is some way of identifying the trick that was used to get this to work.

Chris
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post #17 of 21
2/27/13 at 9:50pm
Thanks to the help of one of the members that posted in this thread Logitech was able to pull the programming from that profile and add it to my remote. It works perfectly. It's almost as if Logitech forgot how to do this type of programming.

If you're looking to do this what's described, reach out to me with a PM and I'll try to give you the info you need to give Logitech to set you up.
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post #18 of 21
2/28/13 at 11:46am
I tried to get Logitech Tier 2 Support to explain exactly what the coding done was to make it simple for someone else to request it and the response was,

'I really don't know how to describe on how they got those codes. So if someone in the forums needs those codes, just tell them to contact us because we already saved those codes on our resources so we can provide those to other customers.'

Just insist that it's possible and point to this forum as proof. The Tier 2 agent that worked on my account was named Benjamin Tomas. The Reference Number I was given is 130103-001224.

I probably won't check my PMs all that often on this forum, so I hope this info is enough to get it to work for you.
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post #19 of 21
2/28/13 at 1:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by voicekiller View Post

Just insist that it's possible and point to this forum as proof. The Tier 2 agent that worked on my account was named Benjamin Tomas. The Reference Number I was given is 130103-001224.

I probably won't check my PMs all that often on this forum, so I hope this info is enough to get it to work for you.

Hi voicekiller, thank you for the great info. BTW did Logitech charge you for this service and did they require a s/n of your remote?
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post #20 of 21
3/1/13 at 3:14pm
I was charged initially to go to Tier 2 and then refunded when the couldn't figure out how to do it. I then posted here and got the info I needed for them to activate the feature. No sure if they're going to charge me now or not. I don't think Tier 1 support can make this change, so I would expect to pay.

I can't see why they'd need your serial number as they can access your whole profile with your username, but who knows, maybe they need it in tech support for tracking.

Chris
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post #21 of 21
3/2/13 at 6:58pm
^^^ hopefully I get lucky, thanks.
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