Creating scenes, schedules and timers from the Wiser app

One of the best things about a C-Bus system running through a Wiser Home Controller is that you don’t need to be a programmer to make it feel clever. From the Wiser app on your phone or tablet you can build scenes, set schedules and run simple timers yourself — and once they’re saved, they live on the controller and keep working whether your phone’s connected or not. This guide walks our Melbourne customers through doing exactly that, and shows where the line sits between what you can change yourself and what our team handles in the installer tools.

Scenes (a.k.a. moments): one tap, many loads

A scene is a saved snapshot of how you want a group of lights and loads to behave. Tap it once and the controller sends out all the right levels at once — kitchen down to 40%, hallway off, lounge lamps to a warm 60%, blinds closed. We set these up constantly for things like Movie, Goodnight, Away, Dinner and Welcome Home.

The thing worth understanding is that a scene stores levels, not just on/off. C-Bus dimmers run from 0 to 255 (shown as 0–100% in the app), so a good scene is really a set of target levels with sensible ramp rates so the change looks smooth rather than snapping.

1. Open the Wiser app and go to the Scenes (or Moments) section, then choose to add a new scene.
2. Give it a clear, plain-language name — “Movie”, not “Scene 7”. You’ll thank yourself later, and so will your voice assistant.
3. Add the loads you want included. For each one, set the desired level: full, off, or a dim percentage.
4. Set the lighting first, then physically adjust the room until it looks right, and let the app capture those levels. Many people find it easier to dial in the look live than to guess percentages.
5. Save. The scene is written to the Wiser controller and is now available in the app, on schedules, and to any linked voice assistant.

Why good scenes matter more than you’d think

Here’s the part people miss: the scenes you build in the app are exactly what voice assistants and remote control reach for. When you say “Hey Google, movie time,” the assistant isn’t reaching into your wiring — it’s triggering the Movie scene you created. So a few minutes spent building tidy, well-named scenes pays off across every way you control the house. Nine times out of ten when a customer rings us saying voice control feels limited, the real fix is simply building better scenes for it to call.

If you haven’t linked voice control yet, that’s a separate setup — our Wiser help section covers getting the controller talking to Google or Alexa.

Schedules: making the house run itself

A schedule runs a scene or a load at set times on set days. This is where a C-Bus home starts feeling automated rather than just app-controlled. Common ones we set up include outdoor lights coming on at dusk, the kids’ bathroom heat lamp not being allowed on after a certain hour, and a “wind down” scene that dims the living areas on weeknights.

1. In the app, open Schedules (sometimes under Automation) and create a new one.
2. Choose what it controls — pick a scene for multi-room actions, or a single load for simple on/off.
3. Set the trigger time. As well as a fixed clock time, the controller’s logic engine commonly supports astronomical times, so you can choose sunrise or sunset (often with an offset, e.g. “30 minutes before sunset”).
4. Select the days it should run — weekdays only, weekends, or every day.
5. Save. Like scenes, the schedule is stored and executed on the Wiser controller.

It keeps working when your phone doesn’t

This is the bit we make a point of explaining, because it surprises people. Your scenes and schedules don’t live in the app — they live on the Wiser Home Controller, which is a small always-on device wired into your system. The app is just a window onto it.

That means your sunset lights still come on when your phone’s flat, when you’re overseas, when the home internet drops out, or when guests are over and nobody opens the app. The controller carries its own clock and runs its own logic. The app simply syncs your changes down to it. Lose the phone, replace the phone, hand the phone to a teenager — the house keeps doing its thing.

Timers: simple on/off you can build yourself

A lot of what people call a “timer” is really just a schedule. Want the laundry exhaust to switch off 20 minutes after it goes on? Want the pool pump on between certain hours? Want a lamp to fake occupancy while you’re away? All of that can be built as schedules in the app:

• On/off timers — one schedule to turn a load on, another to turn it off.
• Away/holiday lighting — a couple of evening scenes on slightly varied times so the place looks lived in.
• Daily routines — morning lights up at a fixed time on weekdays, a softer time on weekends.

For the genuinely simple time-based stuff, the app is all you need. You’re effectively building C-Bus Trigger and Lighting actions without ever touching the technical layer underneath.

Where the app stops and we step in

The app handles scenes, schedules, sunrise/sunset timing and straightforward on/off beautifully. What it doesn’t do is complex conditional logic — the “if this and that, but only when this isn’t happening” rules. Things like:

• Motion sensors that only trigger lights after dark and only when the Away scene isn’t active.
• Loads that ramp differently based on the time of day or another sensor.
• Interlocks, staged sequences, or logic that talks across multiple C-Bus applications.

That deeper logic is configured by our team in PICED (the Wiser project tool) and written to the controller. So the rule of thumb is: everyday scenes and schedules — you, in the app; clever conditional behaviour — us, in PICED. Changes you make in the app sync to the controller automatically, but major logic changes still need the installer tools. If you ever find yourself trying to describe a rule with the words “but only if”, that’s usually our cue.

A few habits that make life easier

• Name everything in plain English so voice control and other family members can use it.
• Build a small number of strong scenes rather than dozens of fiddly ones — a Movie, a Goodnight, a Welcome Home and an Away will cover most of daily life.
• Test a new schedule the next day before relying on it, especially sunset-based ones.
• If a schedule isn’t firing as expected, check the day-of-week selection first — it catches people more than anything else. Our troubleshooting section has more if things misbehave.

Have a play — you really can’t break anything by building scenes and schedules, and it’s the fastest way to make your system feel like it was made for your house. If you want clever conditional automation, or you’d like us to set up a polished starter set of scenes and schedules so you’ve got something solid to build on, that’s exactly what we do. Give the DUKE team a shout via our contact page and we’ll sort it. — Adam and the team at DUKE.