How To: Dinner is Ready Notification | SmartThings

How To: Dinner is Ready Notification | SmartThings

Overview

This knowledge base article will show you how to set a notification to let yourself or others know when dinner is ready. This is helpful for when everyone is around watching the Detroit Lions lose on Thanksgiving and you want to let your guests/family know it's time for dinner. We'll accomplish this by having your light switches utilize notifications to visually show it's time for dinner. If you have bulbs and/or lightstrips, then we can add those into the mix too (ie: change colors). We'll trigger these notifications by a triple-tap up on your light switch. Then, if you want to add some class to your dinner party, we can set up a favorites button on your switch to automatically set the dim level to 40%.

There are many ways to do this including buying a smart stove, but in this article, we'll utilize scene control with your switches to get this to work as there's a small amount of people who have smart stoves.

What You'll Need

To accomplish the above example, you'll need at least the following from a hardware perspective:
  1. Inovelli Red Series Switches: On/Off, Dimmer, Fan/Light
  2. RGBW Bulb(s) and/or Lightstrips: Inovelli Bulb, Inovelli Lightstrip, etc*
From a software perspective, you'll need to install some device handlers and setup SmartThings built-in SmartApp (Smart Lighting).

Device Handlers

  1. Inovelli Products: Bulb, Lightstrip, Red Series On/Off, Red Series Dimmer, Red Series Fan/Light
    1. Child Handlers: You will need to install the child handlers as well -- On/Off Child Handler, Dimmer & Fan/Light Child Handler

SmartApps

For this exercise, we'll be using SmartThings, "Smart Lighting" SmartApp, which is built into the SmartThings App. More on that below in the setup instructions.

Setting Up Your Scene

Again, prior to setting everything up, please install the correct device handlers (you will need both the main handler for the device and also the child handler as referenced above). This is essential to make this automation work. Also a reminder, what we're planning on doing with this scene/automation is to notify your guests/family that dinner is ready using switch notifications (switch will pulse green), bulbs and a lightstrip (bulbs and lightstrip are optional -- we'll turn them green).

Step 1 - Preparing Notifications

First, we have to setup what you want the notification you'd like. There are so many options and to better explain how they work, we'll break it down into a couple sections: Notification Components and Selecting your Notification.

Notification Components

There are four (4) different components to every single notification:
  1. LED Effect Color: This is the color you want your notification to be
  2. LED Effect Level: This is the dim level you want your notification to be
  3. LED Effect Duration: This is how long you want your notification to last
  4. LED Effect Type: This is the animation you want your notification to be
To get a better visual of what the LED bar would look like, please click on this link (special thank you to Nathan Fiscus from our community for building this):  https://nathanfiscus.github.io/inovelli-notification-calc/

NOTE: For an On/Off or Dimmer Switch, you can clear your notification manually from the switch by tapping 2x on the configuration button. Whereas on the Fan/Light switch, you have two separate LED bars for notifications and if you want to clear a Light LED bar notification, you'd hold down on the top of the Light Rocker and while holding it, press the Light Button 2x. Similarly, for the Fan LED Bar notification, you'd hold down on the top of the Fan Rocker and while holding it, press the Fan Button 2x.

Selecting Your Notification

Once you've determined what you'd like your notification to look like, it's time to select it from within the app. Again, please remember to have installed the child handler otherwise this will not work.
  1. Open up your SmartThings App
  2. Select your Inovelli Red Series Switch
  3. Click the three dots at the top right and select, "Settings"
  4. Scroll down to the, "LED Notifications" section
  5. Select your, "Effect Color" - In this case, "green"
  6. Select your, "Effect Level" - In this case, "100"
  7. Select your, "Effect Duration" - In this case, "Indefinitely"
  8. Select your, "Effect Type" - In this case, "Pulse"
  9. Go back to the home screen (where it lists out your rooms)
NOTE: Remember the Fan/Light switch has two different areas to setup notification effects (Fan and Light).

If you want more than one light switch to show the notification, please repeat the step above for each switch you want to show the notification

Step 2 - Setting Up Your Automation (To Turn on Notifications) 

After we've prepared the notification, it's time to setup the automation using the Smart Lighting SmartApp to turn this notification (pulsing green) on when your Inovelli switch is triple tapped up signifying dinner:

Smart Lighting Automation: LED Bar Lights to Pulse Green

  1. Click on the three lines at the top left of the screen (to access the menu)
  2. Click on, "SmartApps"
  3. Click on the, (+) sign at the top right to add a SmartApp
  4. Scroll down and select, "Smart Lighting" and select it
  5. Click on, "New Lighting Automation"
  6. Click on, "Which devices do you want to control", and select the following devices:
    1. Red Series Notification Devices: "Whatever you named your Inovelli Red Series Switch (Notification 1)" and click, "Done" (NOTE: Look for whatever you named your Red Series Switch and then it should say, "(Notification 1)" next to it. The Fan/Light switch will say, "Fan" or, "Light" before Notification 1)
      1. You can select multiple devices that have notifications setup (ie: select, "Switch #1 (Notification 1)", "Switch #2 (Notification 1)", "Switch #3 (Notification 1)", etc)
    2. Light Bulbs and/or Lightstrips: Optional, but if you have them, why not?
  7. Change, "What do you want to do?" to, "Turn On & Set Color" (ST App says, "Colour")
  8. Click on, "Color" and select, "Green" and press, "Done"
  9. Click on, "Dimmer Level" and select, "100%", then press, "Done"
  10. Click on, "Select Trigger", select, "Button" and press, "Done"
  11. Click on, "Which Button?", select your Inovelli switch, and press, "Done"
  12. Click on, "Button Number" and select, "Three"* and press, "Done"
  13. Click on, "Button Action" and select, "Pushed"*
  14. Ensure, "Toggle on & off" is selected on (you'll want to triple tap up again to clear all notifications)
  15. Press, "Next", followed by, "Next" again, and then, "Done"
* If you want something other than triple-tap up, you can see our Button Mapping Charts to select the proper button (tap count, up/down) to be the trigger.

That's it -- now every time you want to let people know dinner is ready, you can triple-tap up on your Inovelli light switch and it will notify everyone with switch heads-up notifications, bulbs and lightstrips turning on.

Setting the Config Button as a, "Favorites" Button

The config button (top right of the switch) can also double as a, "favorites" button where you can set the dim level to your default level immediately. In other words, if you prefer to have your lights on at 40% at dinner, you can press the config button and it will automatically turn them to 40%.

To set this up, please see our article: Using the Config Button as a Favorites Button