How to simulate sunrise using a dimmable light

We often get asked how to simulate sunrise by gradually increasing the brightness of a lamp over a longish period of time. There are a bunch of different ways of doing this, some specific to the technology, others requiring AppleScript. The first scenario here will be technology agnostic and not require AppleScript so that both Pro and Lite customers can use this technique.

Any technology, no AppleScript Scenario

This technique has the following components:

a schedule that, at the appropriate time in the morning, enables the following schedule and sets it to automatically disable after a certain amount of time
a schedule that repeats every minute, gradually brightening the light
optionally, a trigger that will cancel the whole shebang by setting disabling the schedule above and turning off the light

So, here's our scenario description: at 5:00am, I want my beside lamp to begin brightening gradually over 20 minutes until it reaches 100%. I also have an X10 remote control that, when i push B1 OFF, it turns the light off and cancels the simulation. OK, with that in mind, let's get started.

First, we'll create the Schedule that actually brightens the light

Select Schedules from the View menu
Click the New… button at the top of the Schedule List
Name it Sunrise Simulation
In the Time: section, click the radio button beside Every and change the minutes text field to 1
Click on the Actions tab
Select Device Actions→Light/Appliance Controls→Brighten by % from the Action: popup
Select your lamp from the Device: popup
Enter 5 into the Amount: text field
Click the OK button, and then, in the Schedule list, uncheck the checkbox beside the “Sunrise Simulation” to disable it for the moment

Next, let's create the Schedule that will start the simulation at 5:00am

Click the New… button at the top of the Schedule List
Name it Start Sunrise Simulation
In the Time: section, change the time in the first box to 5:00am
Click on the Actions tab
Select Server Actions→Enable/Disable/Reload Actions→Enable Schedule from the Type: popup
Select Sunrise Simulation from the Enable: popup
Click on the Auto-disable after checkbox and enter 0:20:00 into the time selector field
Click the OK button

Finally, create the trigger so that when we see a B1 OFF, we stop everything

Select Trigger Action List from the View menu
Name it Stop Sunrise Simulation
Select X10/RF Command Received from the Type: popup
Select Off from the Received: popup
Click on the Address radio in the From: section and select B and 1
Click on the Actions tab
Select Server Actions→Enable/Disable/Reload Actions→Disable Schedule from the Type: popup
Select Sunrise Simulation from the Disable: popup
Click on the Add New button at the lower left side of the window to add another action
Select Device Actions→Light/Appliance Controls→Turn Off from the Type: popup
Select your lamp from the Device: popup
Click the OK button

That's it! Now, every morning at 5:00am, you'll get a simulated sunrise over 20 minutes, and if you hit the B1 OFF button on your X10 remote, it will stop it and turn the light back off. Obviously, there are several things you can adjust about this: the amount of time that it takes, the ramp rate, use a different remote, etc. But you get the general idea.