A newbie here. I only have ordered SmartThings hub, and I have yet to order a few dozen things in the weeks to come, but I’d like to get started with light fixtures and wall switches.
My question is…
The light fixture says it’s Wink compatible, and the switch says it requires Lutron Smart Bridge. My understanding is ST hub alone can handle light on/off, dimming, and scheduling all on its own without having to buy Wink and Lutron hubs. Am I right?
I’m not too familiar with that light. You’d have to check how it’s supposed to connect to wink; if it uses zigbee or z-wave it might work with ST (although not necessarily out of the box, a custom device handler may be necessary).
But lutron caseta devices will not work with ST unless you have a lutron smart bridge. The integration btw lutron and ST relies on cloud-to-cloud communication.
I was told the fixture will work with “Zigbee RGBW bulb” setting.
Any recommendation for the switch? I wanted more than a single ‘on and off’ button so that I could control the brightness and the colour temperature.
As Mark said, in order to use Lutron Caseta devices with SmartThings , You need to use the Lutron smartbridge.
On top of that, if you are using the official integration, the Picos are invisible to SmartThings and can only be used to control another Lutron device attached to the same smartbridge. So you can’t use them to control a zigbee or zwave light. (The Wink/Lutron integration is different, and does allow full use of the picos, which is why it’s easy to get confused.)
Anyway, as Mark also said, there are a number of different battery operated switches and buttons that do work well with SmartThings, and you can use them to control any other device which is also controlled by SmartThings, such as a zigbee light.
See the following thread for the full list (this is a clickable link). This list includes both wallmount and handheld devices and both battery operated and mains power devices, so read the descriptions carefully to find what you want.
All of that said, though, while there are some dimmer options on that list, I don’t know of anything that would let you change the color temperature from cool to warm other than a phone or tablet on the wall. But what you could do is get one of the multibutton devices and make each button a different preset color temperature level if that works for you.
The Remotec 90 is a battery operated 8 button device, and each button accepts tap, double tap, and long hold, so you get a total of 24 options from one device. There are other multibutton devices as well, so just depends what would work for you.
So you can definitely get dimming from any of several of the devices on the list in the FAQ. But as far as changing color temperature, I think you’re going to have to go to something with a choice of preset levels. Of course, you always have full control of the color temperature through the app or with an automation rule.
Also, looking at that light again, it does change color temperature ( cold white to warm white) , not color (red, green, blue), so you’re not going to want to use an RGBW device handler. You need one that can control color temperature, which is a different set of values.
The thread that JD links to is chock full of very useful info (as usual).
Take a look through that to get an idea of what’s available. As you’ll see, there are various ways to control a light with ST.
One other thought, “battery powered” and “fixed to the wall” aren’t mutually exclusive. Some battery powered switches or buttons can be mounted to the wall and can even fit in nicely with other dumb wall switches. Just depends whether you prefer to maintain the look of a regular switch, or the portability of a battery powered device.
Just to be clear, if I want to go with the Pico remotes and have light fixtures installed to 2 different rooms (for my boy and girl), I will need ST & Lutron Smart Bridge attached to my home router + 2 of these?
Yes, you’ll need one of the hardwired caseta switches per fixture/circuit that you want to control, and then you can use the pico remotes that come with each switch in the kit you linked to.
The pico will allow for local control, and since it communicates with the hardwired caseta switch, which then adjusts the load, any change you make will be reflected in the ST app. But ST doesn’t know that you adjusted the pico, it only knows that your hardwired caseta switch made a change. As JD mentioned, the pico remote itself is invisible to ST, if you’re using the official integration.
Thanks to both JDRoberts and Mark. It has been extremely helpful.
It seems Lutron LZL-4B-WH-L01 Connected Bulb Remote would work without Lutron Bridge.
Do you think I could have this installed next to my hard-wired switch (non-Smart-switch), but have this + pico wallplate bracket inside 2-gang wall plate?
Unfortunately, That’s not going to work with SmartThings.
Zigbee is complicated, because although it’s one “protocol,” it allows for multiple “profiles,” and the profiles aren’t all interoperable.
The Lutron Connected Bulb Remote is a device which is intended to talk directly to ZLL bulbs so you could have a battery operated switch on the wall with them. It’s not using the Lutron proprietary frequency, and it doesn’t use the Lutron smartBridge. But it doesn’t talk to SmartThings, either.
One of the issues that you are running into is that wink and SmartThings have some similarities and some pretty important differences. Both can work with most certified Z wave devices. But when it comes to either Lutron or zigbee, they have implemented their integrations quite differently. Wink went all in on Lutron early on, and even has a Lutron radio in their hub. SmartThings only added Lutron integration this year, and it is cloud to cloud through the smartbridge. So Wink can offer a number of Lutron options that SmartThings cannot.
I suggest at this point that you talk to people in the following thread, which is the people who are using that light with SmartThings. They can tell you what switch options they are using with it.
Although SmartThings can talk to a larger number of zigbee devices than wink can, when you come specifically to the Lutron small remotes, both the pico and the Lutron connected bulb remote, it’s wink that has the advantage.
For similar devices that do work with SmartThings, again, see the buttons FAQ:
I still feel a bit confused as to why I would need to buy all these gateways/bridges on top of ST, because I had thought just having ST would solve everything, but thanks again JDRoberts for thorough explanation.
I’ll resort to the links you’ve left and do some more researches, but I feel as though buying Wink hub and getting Pico Remotes would probably save me time & money.
The ST talks Bluetooth (not yet enabled), Z-Wave, ZigBee, and WiFi. The Caseta wireless products don’t talk any of those protocols, they use a proprietary RF signaling. The Lutron bridge links the Caseta wireless products to the web. the ST Hub talks to the web. Using a pre-nogotiated RESTful API, ST and Caseta wireless can talk to each other over the web only. There is no hub-to-hub protocol yet, and neither unit can talk the same language as the other. So, you cannot link the two systems unless you have the hub from each system. And because Caseta Wireless does not bordact pico remote signals our the web interface, the ST hub cannot talk see the pico remotes at all. The ST Hub can see the state of the devices that the remotes control (via the Caseta bridge), but not pico remotes.
As far as I can see, to talk to the pico remotes you would need a staple connect hub (the only one I know of that actually works with the pico remotes directly) or some gateway software on a computer to bridge the two systems together and custom device handlers / SmartApps to allow you to communicate with the gateway software to see the pico remotes.
to put it simply, the Caseta Wireless Lutron / ST compatibility supports most devices, but not all, and the pico remote is one that is not yet supported.
One “way outside the box” possibility is to find yourself a Staples Connect Hub.!! It’s out of production and support is… probably none.
It does exactly what you’re asking… I know because I have one doing exactly what you wish. Every bed in my house has a Pico remote stuck to the headboard and all of them are paired with, and talk to, the Staples Connect. Every Pico turns on or off various ZWave lights or fans.
Staples Connect is a secondary Controller and is also paired to every Z-Wave device I care to manage using the Pico’s. (I have many Controllers: SmartThings, Staples Connect, Wink 1 and a Z-Stick, plus a minimote, etc.) They will all pair to a varying number of ZWave, Zigbee, and in the case of Staples and Wink, Lutron ClearConnect. All 65+ of my ZWave devices are paired to SmartThings. 50+ are also paired to Z-Stick and probably 40+ are also paired to StaplesConnect. Thus for the majority of my ZWave devices, they cna be controlled from any of three Hubs (Controllers.)
ONLY the StaplesConnect properly handles Lutron in my opinion. StaplesConnect is protocol agnostic, the Pico’s are just another device, in the same way a Zwave button (see the List) is just a button to SmartThings. In the StaplesConnect universe, a Pico can manage a Zwave, a Zigbee, and a Lutron, in any order or quantity.
Anyway, I’ve gone on and on about StaplesConnect and I was very much hoping that the new(ish) Wink 2 would integrate Lutron properly… yet I haven’t seen anything. Wink 1 allowed Picos to “pass through” to Lutron devices ONLY. I haven’t seen anything that tells me I need a Wink 2.
FYI staples connect appears to have completely shut down servers Feb/Mar 2018. Any fellow staples connect / pico users find an alternative? Mine still work but I cannot access any configurations anymore.
