Help understanding lutron caseta integration official vs njschwartz

Morning! I’m getting closer to moving the most lights over to automation in our house as the wife and daughter are adjusting to some of the automation. Our house has a lot of switches without neutral lines and I would like some consistency on the switches so I’m leaning towards the luton Caseta line which @JDRoberts mentioned in one of my previous posts. That and I’m working to maintain compatibility for HomeKit and HomeSeer if I decide to move that direction.

For future HomeSeer compatibility I would need to go with the pro hub, so if I make the move that would be the hub of my choice.

For now while I am on SmartThings (waiting to see how AirPlay2, songs, and SmartThings/HomeSeer integration unfolds) - does the OEM integration work with the pro version of the Caseta bridge? How does this integration differ from @njschwartz integration? I’m already running a PI3 with HomeBridge so adding to it isn’t much of a concern.

what benefits or losses does the pro version bring for integration?

thanks!

Yes, the official integration works with either the regular SmartBridge or the SmartBridge pro.

As for differences, the official integration is cloud to cloud, so it is limited in the features and devices. It works just fine for regular switches, but the pico remotes will be invisible to smartthings. You can still use them as an auxiliary switch for the master switch. But in the official integration you cannot use them for changing mode, arming smart home monitor, or controlling other devices beyond the Caseta switches. But set up is fast and easy and officially supported by both companies. :sunglasses:

The smartbridge pro allows direct communication for third parties through an open API. That’s what Nate’s unofficial integration uses. It requires a “man in the middle” server, but once you have that, It provides access to more features and devices. In particular, it makes the Picos visible to smartthings, Which a lot of people like. But this integration is technically much more complex to set up and is not officially supported, so you have to get community help if you run into problems.

Both methods are good, just depends on exactly what you need at your house.

In addition, some community members are running both integrations because each is limited to a single lutron Caseta bridge. So if you have a very large house or you want to set up a separate Airbnb area with its own smart bridge, you can set up one Lutron SmartBridge with official integration, and a second one with Nate’s integration and that way you get two smartbridges on your smart things account. (You could probably even set up a third with IFTTT, although it would have much more limited functionality.)

I personally use the smartbridge pro because it does allow for additional integrations even though I don’t use those features with SmartThings. So just depends on what you yourself need. :sunglasses:

excellent response, thank you! The idea of using the picos for scenes could help with the WAF :slight_smile:

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