Philips Hue lights set to minimum brightness at f.lux startup (v4.124)
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After updating to f.lux version 4.124, I am experiencing strange behavior with my linked Philips Hue lights.
My normal order of operations when waking up is to do the following:
- Turn on the lights (they default to a relatively warm color temperature and 100% brightness)
- Boot up my PC
At this point, once my PC boots and f.lux starts, the lights change to the correct color temperature for the time of day, but get set to extremely low brightness (~5%). If I go into the Hue app and change their brightness back to 100%, it seems to be fine for the rest of the day. However, it all plays out again the next day when I wake up, turn on my lights, and boot up my PC.
Any idea what might be causing this? If I can provide any further information to assist in troubleshooting (logs, screenshots, etc.), please let me know.
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@amloessb we are trying in this version to acknowledge dimming from other apps and remotes. So f.lux thinks someone has dimmed the lights to 5% but it sounds like this is not true in your case.
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The same is happening here. How can I downgrade to the last working version?
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In the meantime, I found this brilliant project: https://github.com/stefanvictora/hue-scheduler
It's a little harder to setup, but really just a little, not too complicated at all, and seems to work very well. It's even ready to be deployed on a Pi, so it might be the ultimate solution. -
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@herf Thanks!
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@herf That's correct. I'm not dimming the lights via any other means before starting up f.lux.
Here's a video I took inside the Hue app while it happened live (skip to 0:55 for the action): https://photos.app.goo.gl/5pwXTB3Ja8Z89J2w7
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@amloessb just to be sure:
- Are you turning on the lights with a wall switch or a hue switch/app?
- Is there ever a time when f.lux is running overnight, or is it always a fresh launch?
Wondering if we are getting some "last night" state from the hub or from f.lux itself...
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Ok - for today, we are releasing a build that will allow you to turn off the "backoff" feature for Hue. We want to fix it, but we wanted it to keep working without a downgrade:
https://justgetflux.com/flux-setup4-125.exe
In the f.lux options > connected lighting tab there is now a "backoff" checkbox (should be checked by default) and you can turn it off if this behavior is really messing up your system.
I would love any help you can give us in tracking down exactly which state is triggering extra dimming.
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@herf Sorry for the late reply. I think I've fixed my forum settings so I'll get emails on new replies to this thread now.
To answer your questions:
- I'm turning on the lights with a smart wall switch, but as far as the Hue bulbs are concerned, they suddenly receive power and come on. Normally, I never open the Hue app.
- I always shut down my desktop at night, so f.lux is always starting fresh.
I'm more than happy to help you troubleshoot this in order to determine the root cause. If there's some way to enable additional logging in the app, or if there's anything else I can do to help, please let me know.
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- which switch is it? Does it interact with the Hue bridge at all?
- good to know - this should be similar to running a new copy I think
We keep no persistent state for this feature (about previous dimming), so it is something that f.lux is seeing on startup.
I wonder if the lights are coming on at slightly less than full brightness or something like that...
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The smart switch is a Leviton DW15S-1BZ. It connects via WiFi and does not talk to the Hue bridge at all.
As for the brightness question, take a look at the video I posted earlier. You can see that the lights are on at 100% brightness before f.lux starts up.
Looking at the video again, I noticed that after f.lux dims the lights, the brightness starts very slowly creeping back up, one percentage point at a time. I haven't set up any automations in my Hue app, so I assume that it's also f.lux doing this. Could that behavior shed some light on what's happening?
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@herf I haven't heard back from you, so I went ahead and installed v4.125 and turned off the "backoff" setting, which does seem to have fixed the issue.
If you would still like my assistance in troubleshooting the cause of this problem, please let me know. I am more than happy to help any way I can.
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We released 4.126 to beta track today - it should be more careful to avoid reading old state immediately after startup.
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It sounds like there might be a compatibility issue between the latest f.lux update and the Philips Hue settings. A common workaround is to check if both f.lux and the Hue app are updated to their latest versions, as this can sometimes resolve such conflicts.
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v4.131 has another fix in this area, please try it out.
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@herf Backoff doesn't seem to be working for me at all. I'm in 4.131, I have Backoff checked, and when I use my hue app to change the color, the color changes right back to the f.lux controlled color a minute later. Pausing f.lux also doesn't pause the hue lights control.