Philips Dynalite

Philips Dynalite support is integrated into Home Assistant as a hub that can drive the light, switch, and cover platforms.

There is currently support for the following device types within Home Assistant:

• Lights
• Switches
• Covers

A Philips Dynalite hub connects to the Dynet network, which is composed of areas, channels, and preset.

A Dynalite area typically (although not necessarily) defines some physical area, such as a room.

Each area can have one or more channels that correspond to the different devices they control. A channel can relate to a dimmable light, or other devices.

Additionally, each area can have one or more presets that determine the behavior of all the channels, and sometimes trigger additional actions. Typically, preset ‘1’ in an area means ‘on’, and preset ‘4’ means ‘off’. Additional presets could be used for scenes and dimming.

Configuration

To add the Philips Dynalite integration to your Home Assistant instance, use this My button:

Setup

Since Philips Dynalite has virtually no auto-discover capabilities, once it is added via the UI, it needs to be configured via Dynalite panel. Note that the panel is only available to “admin” level users.

There are global setup parameters and advanced parameters that should normally be left as is. The most important part is defining the areas. Each area normally corresponds to a room or function. They have to be added manually via the UI and match the setup of the existing dynalite installation.

Initial configuration and discovery

Maybe the most difficult thing about a Dynalite system is finding out the areas and channel mapping. If you have them or have access to the Dynalite software and your configuration files, this could be easy, but in the likely case that your system was installed by an integrator, you will have to discover them on your own.

This is where the autodiscover option comes handy. If it is on, the component will track the Dynet network and every time a device is used, it will be added to Home Assistant. It will initially show as “Area 123 Channel 7”, but you can then add it to your configuration.yamlThe configuration.yaml file is the main configuration file for Home Assistant. It lists the integrations to be loaded and their specific configurations. In some cases, the configuration needs to be edited manually directly in the configuration.yaml file. Most integrations can be configured in the UI. [Learn more] with the correct configuration.

For example, you would go to your kitchen light and turn it on. Now you log into Home Assistant and see what the channel was. If there was more than one discovered (e.g., someone turned off the living room lights), you can try one, turn it on and off in Home Assistant and see which light it affects.

The initial process can be a bit time consuming and tedious, but it only has to be done once. Once you are done configuring, it is better to set autodiscover to false, since there are many “fake” channels and areas that the system uses for internal communication and you do not want to have visible.

Actions

Action dynalite.request_area_preset

Send a command on the Dynalite network asking an area to report its currently selected preset. Normally, channel 1 (default) is used, but in some implementation, specific areas will need other channels.

Action dynalite.request_channel_level

Send a command on the Dynalite network asking a specific channel in an area to report its current level.

Events

Event dynalite_preset

Event dynalite_preset is fired every time a preset is selected in a given Dynalite area.

Event dynalite_packet

Event dynalite_packet is fired whenever there is a packet on the Dynalite network.