Lutron Connected Bulb Remote

I have hue bulbs connected directly to the smart things hub. I connected the lutron remote to the smart things hub. I then paired the bulb with the lutron remote. The lutron remote “stole” the bulb, which means it no longer works with the smart things hub.

It seems hue bulbs do not work as a “Secondary Controller”.

Actual smart things integration with the Lutron Remote working as a button controller would be awesome.

I wasn’t able to find a detailed description of how to get this remote working with Hue bulbs while they’re connected directly to SmartThings. Here’s what I did:

  1. Pair the remote with SmartThings by looking for devices in the phone app, and holding the “on” button on the remote. SmartThings detects it as a “Thing” with no Device Handler
  2. Reset your Hue bulb with the remote - hold “off” and “dim up” for about 10 seconds while holding the remote 4 inches from the bulb
  3. Pair the bulb with SmartThings by searching for it in the phone app
  4. Pair the bulb with the remote by holding the “on” button for about 10 seconds within 4 inches of the bulb

Now you’ve got bulbs that are connected to both SmartThings and the Connected Bulb Remote.

I picked one of these up because I really want to have a physical switch (the closer it is to a normal looking light switch the better) that I can control my Cree Connected bulbs with. I didn’t have any trouble pairing the remote to the bulbs and the bulbs to the hub.

There are a couple of caveats though:

  1. The hub doesn’t know about the remote at all which can lead to the bulb states being out of sync sometimes. As far as I can tell that wouldn’t change if the hub knew about the remote, that’s just supposed to prevent it from “stealing” the bulbs but I didn’t have any issues with that for some reason.
  2. The remote “on” button just turns brightness to 100% and “off” turns brightness to 0% so you can’t turn them back on to their previous state. This seems to be an issue with the commands the remote sends so it would require the remote FW to change or us to be able to use the remote as a button controller in the hub instead of the remote talking directly to the lights.

All in all the issues are a little annoying but it’s functional but it would be really nice to see the support get added to the hub to be able to communicate with the remote. I would really like to get the remote as an actual device in ST so I didn’t have the out of sync issues and so I could control all the devices connected to the remote via 1 device in ST instead of having to manually change the state of each individual device connected to the remote.

FYI You can just press the up dimmer button to return to the last dimmed state. Hope this helps.

This is only true is you have not used the connected bulb remote to turn the light off. When the connected bulb remote turns off the lights, the first thing it does is dim to 1%. So, when you press the up button it goes to something like 4%. If you have shut the bulb off in ST and then press the up button on the remote, the brightness will return to a point just above where it was last set by the remote. So, that feature only works if you are not shutting the bulb off with the remote.

@KCole313: To solve issue #1, you can download a smartapp call “Pollster”. It basically forces a refresh every so-often to update the status of the bulb. I wouldn’t recommend anything too crazy like every 10 seconds or anything. Not a solution but definitely better than nothing.

If you are going to buy bulb to use with this remote, I hear the GE Link bulbs report back a change in their status to ST whenever they are changed.

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Looks like these remotes have been discontinued. :frowning:

Yep, last December.

From Lutron’s point of view, once iOS 10 came out they weren’t really needed anymore because then the pico could trigger any other HomeKit connected bulb. Granted, it doesn’t give you an android solution, But the LCBR was always difficult to explain to people. It was a very nice device technically, but confusing for most consumers.

The fact that a small group of people were also using them to reset ZLL bulbs which had been switched to a nonZLL Channel wasn’t ever really relevant to Lutron, it was just a bonus for us.

So I’ve setup a few lcbrs with osram down light bulbs, by was of a GE Link. Is there any way to stop the GR Link bulb from turning or or otherwise staying on after button presses. I don’t need my closet light on all the time…

Try resetting the GE Link via the on/off method, then search for new devices in ST app to reconnect it. It should reconnect as the old device, but it shouldn’t respond to the lcbrs anymore. (Note: ST May not say it found a new device, but when the GE Link does the blink it reconnected.)

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Awesome, this worked, thanks!

A few of my LCBRs have stopped working. I’ve noticed those that have blink twich on button press, while the ones that still work blink once. Anyone know what this might mean or have any troubleshooting ideas? My next step is to remove them and re-add them, but it’s happened a few times and I’d like to isolate the cause.

Two blinks means it’s been factory reset and isn’t associated with any other devices.

http://www.lutron.com/TechnicalDocumentLibrary/040421_Zigbee_Programming_Guide.pdf

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Happened to me a few weeks ago. Just re-paired and all is fine.

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So i have replaced the battery (just to count it out at this point), factory reset and removed from ST both the LCBR and the bulb. I then paired the bulb back to ST and the Remote to smart things. A few days later the remote isn’t working again. Could it be due to GE bulbs, as they are listed as officially unsupported/unstable?

Anyone know where you can pick one up for a decent price? They are going for $100+ on eBay!!

I have this and I have pretty much given up as once I readd it works for a day or so and then I lose use of the remote.

What’s a decent price? I’ve been hoarding a few for when my current ones eventually die. Message me