[Feature Request] Add Ability to Adjust Lights While Off to Home Assistant

[Twenty5Schmeckels]

First, as always thank you for this project, I've been using it a lot and really appreciate all of the recent features you've been adding.

I noticed that the ability to update the state of lights while off was recently added for setups using the Hue Bridge. I was hoping it would be possible to add it for lights controlled by Z2M. I recently stumbled on this discussion: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/z2m-philips-hue-and-updating-brightness-without-turning-on/933058/3

It outlines the steps needed to enable this functionality. I tested it out on a few bulbs and did find that it seems to be working well on the ones that support the feature. I was able to update the state in Z2M using a MQTT message with the bulb off, and then send a blank light.turn_on action with no data and the light would fade up to the preset brightness and color temp.

That said I did need to enable the functionality manually using another MQTT message as the option appears not to be exposed in the GUI by Z2M. Following this post on the HA forums I sent a MQTT message containing the following:
{"level_config": {"execute_if_off": true}, "color_options": {"execute_if_off": true}}

to the topic zigbee2mqtt/Friendly Name/set replacing friendly name with each supported devices friendly name as assigned in Z2M.

Then continuing to follow the instructions in that thread I sent the following message in the same thread as before:

{
  "state": null,
  "brightness": <bri>,   // 1–254
  "color_temp": <mired>  // 153–500 mireds
}

Any chance of implementing this as an option in hue scheduler for those of us using Home Assistant?

[subha0319]

Hi, I would like to work on this feature. Can you please assign this to me? Thx.

[Twenty5Schmeckels]

Wow! what a ridiculously fast response. I take it there is no good way to test this until it gets accepted right?

Thanks for taking this on, it'll solve one of my biggest pet peeves about the way my lighting works.

[subha0319]

@Twenty5Schmeckels I appreciate your kind words!

I went ahead and compiled a beta .jar of my branch for you. If you're comfortable running a custom build, you can download the attached zip file, extract the .jar and run it just like you normally would (make sure to pass the new --z2m-base-topic=zigbee2mqtt parameter).

Let me know if the silent updates work correctly with your Z2M setup.

hue-scheduler.zip

[Twenty5Schmeckels]

I'll see about having a go at that tonight. I'll be sure to report back with my findings!

Out of curiosity do the lights need to have the execute if off function manually enabled first to work with your branch? or does it handle that?

[subha0319]

@Twenty5Schmeckels
Yes, you will need to manually enable execute_if_off for those lights in your Zigbee2MQTT configuration first.

My branch handles formatting and routing the specific {"state": null} payload that Z2M requires to bypass Home Assistant's default behavior. However, Z2M still acts as the gatekeeper. If execute_if_off isn't enabled on the Z2M side, it will see the bulb is off and either reject the update or force the bulb to turn on anyway.

You should be able to toggle this easily in the Z2M frontend (either in the global Settings under 'State/MQTT' or in the 'Settings (specific)' tab for your individual bulbs).

Let me know how it behaves once that's flipped on!