Another type of SSR, called a ‘random turn on’ solid state relay, is used to implement dimming. It works the same way as a normal SSR, except that there is no zero-crossing detection circuit.

But what if all you have on hand is an ESP8266? [TechColab] needed to control a solenoid valve with a short pulse via a solid-state relay (SSR) but found that the trusty 555 timer was tricky to ...