[OBSOLETE] Lutron Connected Bulb Remote

Any updates here? I’d like to switch from wink to smartthings but only if the lutron remotes are fully supported.

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murzik - Have you tried installing the custom code from workmonk first? I needed to do that to get the remote to pair to ST.

Furthermore, I usually have better luck if I try to pair the remote after hitting 'connect new thing* in the ST app… as ST is searching, essentially. Don’t if that’s absolutely true or not, but it may help. That’s what you have to do to get the Lutron remote to pair with the Hue Bridge by the way - the Hue Bridge must be looking for its own Hue remote as you try pair the Lutron remote.

And to echo many others’ comments here: where is ST support for the Lutron remote? It’s the only elegant remote solution that mounts to traditional wall plate - direct support in ST would be very nice. Whenever my ST hub loses power for more than 15 minutes, which forces Zigbee devices to ‘panic’, I lose my entire setup because my lights are far from the hub (I had to pair the lights to the hub, the remote to the hub, then the remote to the lights - all in near vicinity of one another… so when I then moved my hub away again, ‘panic’ causes it all to fall apart).

Official support of the remote, with the ability to program states or associate with bulbs, would be really nice!

Thanks,
Rishi

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I’ve read through this thread and I just want to make sure I understand.

I can pair this remote with ST, which I have done after installing the device handler.

Here is what I want you guys to validate for me…

I can or cannot just use something like CoRE with this to control LIFX bulbs, right?

When I press buttons on the remote (after it has been paired) I don’t see anything in the logs for the remote.

Thanks.

Hey man. After you pair the remote with ST, you then have to manually pair the remote with the bulbs. Information on how to do this second step are located at http://www.lutron.com/en-US/Products/Pages/Components/ConnectedBulbRemoteControl/Overview.aspx

Hope this helps.

Unfortunately that particular method is Not applicable in this case, as the OP was specifically asking about LIFX bulbs, which do not use the ZLL protocol.

One of the great strengths of SmartThings is that it is a multiprotocol platform. That’s why you can push a button on a Z wave device, like a minimote, and have a zigbee lightbulb come on. Or a LIFX bulb or a striimlight Wi-Fi bulb. Or a group containing one of each.

But in order to do that, each device has to be able to communicate with your SmartThings account, either via the SmartThings hub or cloud to cloud.

And a device where you can push a button and have it send a message to the hub rather than trying to communicate directly to another device has to be able to be set up as what SmartThings calls a “button controller.” The minimote can. So can an Osram Lightify Smart Switch Cover, a SmartenIT 3 toggle, a Devolo battery switch, and several other devices.

But unfortunately, so far at least, not the particular device that this thread is about, the Lutron connected bulb remote. Or it least it won’t stay connected.

The method at the link that you gave is for setting up the Lutron to speak directly to other devices of the same protocol, in this case ZLL. That works fine, although SmartThings won’t know what the status of the end devices are until it polls them. But it won’t let pushing a button on this device control a bulb of a different protocol like LIFX.

The following thread includes the current devices that can act as button controllers for SmartThings, plus some that would just act as a parallel means of control:

Bummer. Sorry @whoismoses At least you have a solid answer now. Thanks @JDRoberts for setting it straight.

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Thanks to both you guys for posting. I already returned the remote.

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Just out of curiosity, if its looking to be paired with a bulb, couldn’t that be faked? I guess the simplest solution would be to actually get a smart bulb and have ST monitor the state and trigger off that (I’m sure a motivated individual could rip a bulb apart and strip it down so its not using a significant amount of energy - but that’d be a waste)… but (having not actually tried any of this), if it pairs with a GE bulb… I dunno, in my mind I feel like it ought(aught?) to be possible to trick it by simulating the pairing process (I know, sounds like I just got through watching ‘hackers’…)

I guess the question is, when the remote pairs with a bulb, is what’s communicated the same as what would be communicated between the hub and the bulb - and can that be faked? And what about the arduino shield? Can you pair the remote with the shield? (probly not…)

just rambling now…

You could possibly use a bulb as a stand-in, similar to how a canary bulb used in the power outage smart app.

The problem is that a zigbee device can only belong to one coordinator. So you would have to have the bulb and the remote both on the smartthings network, and I’m afraid you would then have the same problem with the remote dropping off all the time. At that point I don’t think it can still control the bulb.

You can definitely have a device respond as though it is a bulb, which is basically what the Wink hub does with this device, but smartthings would have to modify the hub’s firmware to do that, and I think that’s very unlikely.

So good ideas, but I’m not sure they’d actually work in practice. Well, I’m sure that modifying the hub’s responses would work, it just doesn’t seem like that’s something smartthings is going to do or they would’ve done it already.

Well… I do have a ‘rooted’ wink hub and the API key too… which might get me a bit of a hacky solution, but if it helps anyone else, I’m game to fiddle - I switched to ST and only really keep it around to control the 2 lutron dimmers I have - one wall switch and one plugin. Man though, their controls are so much sexier than anything else… I like that aeon tech wall ‘button’ but needing the microswitch behind hit kills it for me (or at least for my more immediate interests). shakes fist in the air

Ohhh patents, copyrights and trademarks… we could have so much more fun…

Finally! I finally got around to applying this process to my ST in order to operate my GE Link and Cree Connected bulbs with my Lutron Connected switch. For the better part of a year, I have been operating a Wink Hub JUST for these bulbs :open_mouth: It did take me a little while mainly because I had a difficult time disassociating the Cree Connected bulbs in order to connect with my ST hub. Unlike the GE Link bulbs, you have to “remove” them from the Wink hub. The GE bulbs can be reset without the Wink hub. Anyway, I just wanted to share this and very quickly what I did to get all of this to work.

First of all, I used the code posted in the beginning of this string by ‘workmonk’. Great job and thank you workmonk. Second, I have to stress that folks who use this forum, especially for these types of things are NOT experts. I do consider myself an intelligent person however, I as with many others on here do not spend most of their time with this. With that being said, Sticks18 (Scott G), although I greatly appreciate your contribution, please try and keep your additions to various strings to a novice level. I am not trying to criticize, but your posts slowed me down quite a bit simply trying to decipher them. Just a little word of advise.

So, I navigated to my profile on https://graph.api.smartthings.com/, clicked on “My Device Handlers”, clicked the green “+ Create New Device Handler” button, chose “From Code”, pasted in the code from workmonk, clicked “create” at the bottom of the screen. On the subsequent screen, I clicked “save” and then “publish…to me”. Once I received a published successfully message, I then added the Lutron Connected switch to my ST hub and associated it with the Device Handler after clicking on “Configure Device”. Also under the “Configure Device” step, I associated the switch with the bulb I wanted it to operate. You can add another Lutron Switch if you need to, renaming it and associating it to a different bulb.

Yes, it was that easy. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this forum string!!

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Can someone here give an update on when this will be officially supported? Im having issues where, the LCBR and paired ZLL bulb will unjoin from ST Zigbee network and operate on their own. The pairing process im doing is as follows:

Reset ZLL bulb with LCBR
Reset LCBR with LCBR
ZLL joins ST zigbee network
LCBR joins ST Zigbee network
Pair LCBR with ZLL buld directly

Works in both ST and remote for a day or so.

Any thoughts?

Hi @workmonk

Thank you for the DTH. Do you know when group messaging is coming?

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Thanks @Sticks18, I’m trying this now, instead of using the orginal device type handler from ST and remote pairing. Will keep you posted on how it goes. If there’s an updated version of this please let me know, If not will use this one. :slight_smile: thanks for your support.

@Sticks18 , looks like the smart app you wrote for LCBR, only allows you to pair new bulbs if there are bulbs currently paired to it? Am I wrong? For example, if I have a LCBR and a ZLL bulb can I pair these through the smart app and avoid direct remote pairing?

You’ll need to pair one bulb to get the groupId that the LCBR uses. I couldn’t figure out any other way to discover it, and the LCBR will choose a new one if you reset it.

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Okay thanks!

Logan

Would it make sense that the group id is 1001?

Logan

The groupId is 4 digits, so that could be it. If you post the live log, I can help you parse the message.

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Will do! Going to try to Pair with a none ZLL next week, will post the trace catchall. Thanks @Sticks18