Sorry, I’m not following.
There are people who have a dozen or more installed Lutron switches. A significant investment in both money and time for both the devices and the routines already designed.
Lutron switches work really well. Fast, efficient, durable. These guys have very strong patents. The hardware investment will matter.
“3rd party HomeKit apps can control Caséta Wireless dimmers, switches, and Lutron wireless
shades. 3rd party HomeKit Apps are apps that iOS software developers create to aggregate
HomeKit accessories together into a single app that can control multiple HomeKit accessories…
even from different manufacturers.”
From the sound of it, if the ST V2 hub is homekit certified, ST app should be able to control Lutron devices the same way it would any other device that is directly paired to the hub. I’m not sure how that communication is handled on the back end but it will be interesting if ST can take advantage of that aspect of homekit.
I think @tgauchat’s point is that those Lutron button controllers ARE good and valuable. I have to agree. For a simple multi button UI device, they are very good – way beyond anything available for z-wave. Perhaps I was too harsh saying the integration would have no value, because in one sense, the real value (to me anyway) are the button controllers, not the underlying Lutron “system”. But, to get the controllers, I have to have the system.
The question boils down to this (for me): How much would I pay to have a black box (think Arduino) that interfaces into my Lutron system, and can be connected into ST and setup in such a way that the entire Lutron system of loads and button controllers shows up in ST? My answer: a few hundred dollars, maybe a thousand?
How many Lutron system owners would potentially want such a device: Only those with significant interest / investment in ST who want to add their existing Lutron system into ST. That’s not a big number, is it?
I understand. Since I’m into the engineering aspect, I’d argue the “instant status” is part of the system as well, and Lutron does that really well. Their remotes also work even when other networked parts are down. Most networked switches feel laggy compared to traditional; Lutron has done a lot of engineering to optimize their network protocols for lighting installations. A lot of engineering. No mesh. No polling.
They’ve put way more effort into the network design than they have into the device design, and the devices are solid. (Meaning the network is super solid even though many customers will never recognize the significance of the network protocol’s contribution to the AF.)
That’s why my personal opinion is Lutron style devices on a SmartThings network will still have a lower QOS than a Lutron installation.
I know the following whitepaper on the Lutron Clear Connect protocol is self serving, but it’s still worth reading. There’s a reason these guys are popular with pro installers.
In my older Lutron system they are stuck on 3 seconds on and 3 seconds off. So while it is “instant”, 3 seconds is just way too long. I haven’t found a way to change that. It should be at most 1 second to come on. Too much mood going on with older Lutron stuff.
Your point about lagginess is well taken. I so much prefer automation now to switches. I don’t really want to use switches if I don’t have too (Ha, neither do you!).
It’s true that if the ST hub were HomeKit certified it would get some control over Lutron Caseta devices. Not “the same way it would any other device that is directly paired to the hub”–see the Insteon HomeKit-certified hub for a good example of some of the limitations.
All of that said, although back in January 2015 there were some discussions that ST might go for HomeKit certification, they dialed back on that by March 2015, as did many other device manufacturers, once more information about HomeKit was available.
For a detailed discussion of HomeKit and ST, see:
If you look for additional references, check the date and stick to things published in March 2015 or later. A lot of the early assumptions about how HomeKit integration was going to work turned out to be incorrect.
Check this out:
https://hackaday.io/project/2291/logs
I haven’t looked into much, but maybe a lot of the anduino <-> lutron work has been done here?
Dunno… His project looks like a specific use case.
I’m still a little confused as to the variations of Lutron that are out there and particularly how much of the API is open, or can be reasonably hacked.
I’d be happy to work on a ThingShield based integration (or perhaps some sort of Pi Server…), but I’m looking for sponsors.
Money is always a good incentive… 
And hardware. 
…
Lutron has one patented communication protocol: clear connect. However they have two controller variations: RR2 (intended for whole house installations with many types of devices) and Caseta (intended for individual rooms, like a home theater, But can be used as a lighting control subsystem and added to a home automation system like Insteon, homekit, wink, staples connect, etc.)
RR2 has a published API intended to allow pros to connect other systems to it. Caseta doesn’t.
https://forums.lutron.com/showthread.php/524-Smart-Bridge-Pro-Caseta-vs-RR2
I took just a brief look at the hackaday project: at first glance it appeared to be just a physical hack of a Caseta pico remote so he could tie his dimmer switch to his alarm clock. These days there are a lot of different ways to do something similar.
Yup… That arrangement is a little too limited, even with a lot of relays and remotes!
It’s been well known that Telnet is the way into Lutron (and other) lighting systems for external control. Our problem right now is that we don’t have any way to Telnet from ST.
So… Is it worth the trouble to build a bridge? (ie., a small server that keeps track of & controls Lutron status via Telnet and delivers the results to SmartThings via REST-API or even ZigBee / ThingShield)?
Lutron is only lighting, right? So the scope of the project is… Manageable…?
We’ve been round and round on this before! 
I’d pay something for such a bridge (not a great deal). For now, I’ve decided it isn’t something I’m motivated to tackle personally.
I think it is manageable. The main thing would be to maintain a state machine reflecting the state of the lights – a variation on the “toggle problem”. I looked at this several months ago, and I think you end up polling the Lutron system to discover key presses – that could be done by the bridge, not loading on ST.
Are you volunteering?? 
Yes… this is very deja vu!
I’m motivated by $$ 
… who isn’t? So the question is … what and who will pay, of course.
I’ve probably said this before as well … I know several mid-range households in San Francisco (ummm… very expensive market, so keep that in mind) which are dedicated Lutron.
Lighting is a key use case for SmartThings – my perspective is biased, because it was my initial reason for purchase and still my most used function.
Therefore, Lutron households are unlikely to adopt SmartThings unless this problem is solved. Almost any sub-$500 incremental price over SmartThings is trivial to these households if they are otherwise convinced to use SmartThings.
Frankly, the greatest benefit is to SmartThings as it increases their potential market. As far as I’m concerned, they are “shut out” of Lutron households completely, as nobody will want to run ST if it doesn’t integrate with their lighting.
I agree completely! My prior home had Vantage lighting (Lutron competitor), and I used Telnet in my home-brew HA things for that house.
One problem to be overcome is, for lack of a better word, provisioning of the bridge, i.e., how do you describe and define the Lutron system. On the ST side perhaps a service manager app could spawn child devices for each Lutron “switch” added to the system, and the bridge builds its view of the system from there. But someone has to figure out the mapping from that to Lutron ‘addresses’. There isn’t a very clean or friendly interface into Lutron from outside.
Might have to be a part of the project, I suppose. Never said it would be “easy” … just “doable”.
Who’s paying?
@Ben? … 20 …
Since such households already have lighting, probably with motion sensor control, and likely have higher end security systems as well, what value add would smartthings bring to the party? That is, even if a Lutron/smartthings bridge existed, what would be the point of it from the potential customer’s point of view in this market niche?
I can see the value for the low-end customers, the ones who have staples connect or wink, and just a few lutron Caseta switches, and who might be considering switching to smartthings.
But I don’t see the same value for a high income home that already has full automated lighting.