Recommendations for best switches for 3 way control of smart can lights?

How did you link SmartThings and the Phillips Hue bridge? There are four methods.

  1. cloud to cloud as a linked service. #1 on the following screenshot.

  1. using the stock lan edge driver. #2 on the previous screenshot.

  2. using the Phillips Hue bridge as a matter bridge.

  3. using a community – created edge driver. Set up for this one is more complicated, but it gives you the best integration, including Hue scenes and groups. It should definitely bring in the Lutron Aurora switches.

[ST Edge] Philips Hue LAN [BETA] (3rd Party Driver, Not ST Native)

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I don’t think option one brings in third-party accessories. I’m not sure about options two or three.

I did the RunLessWire paddles and did both Cloud to cloud and Stock edge.

No luck on either.

I’m not opposed to a community-created driver and will head over and see what’s required of that. Thanks for the link.

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Yeah, no such luck with that community driver, either.
It does connect to the Hue Bridge and give me two listed as expected. But going into the linked bridge doesn’t present any “hub link” options. It only shows status (connected) and no connected devices. In fact, it looks exactly like the other hub link with the exception of being able to click into the drivers.
Additionally, I have done a full restart of the Frame smartthings hub.

Not really sure where to go from here.

Start by asking the author of the community created edge driver if your devices are expected to work with that integration and if there’s anything specific you have to do. If I recall correctly, there’s a bug in the SmartThings platform itself and you have to do a workaround right now to get the hue bridge installed fully. They do discuss that in that thread, but it’s a long way down in the topic, since it only happened in the last couple of months.

Since you got the runless wire devices, mention that those are green energy Zigbee like the hue tap dial switch, but from a “friends of Hue“ line.

Meanwhile, do you have Alexa set up?

If so, the runless wire switches should show up as possible triggers in an Alexa routine (not a smartthings routine). So that’s yet another possible integration path.

Here’s one of mine:

Which reminds me: you did get the click model, correct? Not the one that has its own separate transmitter?

Anyway… For now you could just use an Alexa routine so that each of the two switches will turn your smart lights on or off since they both have an Alexa integration. And that will give you time to figure out the SmartThings side. :thinking:

Yes, I did get the Click for Philips Hue to Hue Bridge.
No luck so far and still digging through the other thread.

I don’t have Alexa but do have Google Home but the switches aren’t seen there either, unfortunately.

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I managed to dig up the old hue bulbs I have and set up the switch to control them in the Philips Hue app.
I don’t see any way to use the switches for something that isn’t a Hue device and outside the Hue app, presently.
And even after a restart and command discover from the smartthings.com/advanced dashboard ST just isn’t seeing the switch.

It seems like what I’m asking for should be simple but is proving to be really complicated and frustrating.

I’m sorry it’s so frustrating.

That model click switch definitely works with Apple HomeKit and it definitely works with the Alexa routines, so it’s not limited to just the Hue app.

Did you post a question in the author thread for the custom edge driver? Someone there should know if you can integrate it with smartthings that way.

The Runless switches are supported by my community driver after getting past the issue that ST caused by removing the hub UI. After working around that, they are just like every other switch.

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Very good news!

As @blueyetisoftware (The author of the community created edge driver, I mentioned as method 4 ) confirmed above , that edge driver will indeed bring in the run less wire click switches. The only thing you need to know is that their device class is “button“ so that’s what you have to look for in the Discover workaround. After that, they will appear in the SmartThings app, probably as a 4 button device.

So here are the steps to get everything connected together. This list assumes that you already have the Lumary lights working with your Google home voice assistant. If not, do that first.

  1. add the run less wire click devices to your Phillips Hue app.

  2. Add the community-created Phillips Hue Bridge edge driver to your SmartThings account.

  3. set up the Phillips Hue Bridge to use that edge driver, following the workaround instructions in that thread. Remember that your click devices are “buttons.“ I am linking directly to the post with the workaround instructions

[ST Edge] Philips Hue LAN [BETA] (3rd Party Driver, Not ST Native) - #736 by blueyetisoftware

After this, the click devices should show up in your SmartThings account device list and be available for use in SmartThings routines.

  1. now we need to create a Google home routine so that pressing the click switch will turn on your lumary lights.

(If you were using Alexa, you could just do this in the Alexa app, but I know you are not.)

4A) The good news is that Google home routines can be triggered from a switch. The bad news is that it probably doesn’t think the click devices are switches, it probably thinks they are either buttons or remotes. But first check to see if it does think they are switches. If it does, you’ll be all set. Just create one Google routine to turn the lights on And another Google routine to turn them off

4B) if the click devices are not available to trigger a Google home routine, you will have to create a virtual switch in SmartThings to act as a proxy for the click device. Once you have created the virtual switch, You’ll need one SmartThings routine to turn the virtual switch on when the click switch turns on. And a second SmartThings routine to turn the virtual switch off when the click switch turns off.

After that, you should be able to create a Google home routine to turn on the lumary lights when the virtual switch turns on and another to turn the lumary lights off when the virtual switch turns off.

Note that this virtual switch is now a proxy that you can see in the SmartThings app for your lumary lights even though the lumary lights themselves don’t have a smart things integration. You might want to go ahead and have the virtual switch in any case, as that will also allow you to use other SmartThings automations to turn them on and off.

Obviously, this is just a partial integration. You can’t change colors or anything. But at least it solves the problem of having two switches on the wall, each of which can turn the lights on even though you had to use four Home Automation platforms to get there. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

This clunkiness is exactly what matter is supposed to solve in the future by making it possible to have a light that can work with all the major home automation platforms at the same time. But we aren’t there yet.

You might go ahead and ask Lumary if they intend to add eventual matter integration for their lights. Not for now, obviously, but it might be good for the future.

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Very much looking to try to set this up tonight, thanks, @JDRoberts , for this extensive response.
I did do a discover yesterday for buttons and as of this posting, they still haven’t shown up - but I’m happy to go through step by step and try again in case I have missed something.

Do you think that the issue could be the ST hub is what came with the Samsung Frame vs a standalone hub purchase and that’s why the link option never shows up in ST when using the new drivers from @blueyetisoftware ?

On another note, and for what it’s worth, I did receive this update from RunLessWire:

The Click for Philips Hue Switch only works with the Philips Hue system. If the lights you are trying to control are not Philips Hue, they will not connect with the Philips Hue Bridge, and therefore cannot be controlled by the Click for Philips Hue Switch, and you will want to return them.

You can, however use the Click for Philips Hue Switch to control the Philips Hue bulbs and set automations and scenes within the app. If you are having troubles with the app, please reach out to Philips so they can help.

The LAN drivers work the same on the ST hubs that are integrated into appliances/TVs as they do on the standalone hubs. My only concern would be a conflict with discovery between the stock Philips Hue driver and the one from @blueyetisoftware.

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Discovery is fine. Just DONT tap the button on the hue hub during discovery. If you do, you’ll get the ST version.

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ALEXA PLATFORM

They’re incorrect even in the official Phillips Hue integrations because you can use their switches in an Alexa routine to turn on non hue lights as long as both devices are connected to the Alexa platform. Again, here’s an example from my own account. I have the run less wire click set up to turn on a Meross plug. The Meross is not connected to the Phillips Hue Bridge: it is only connected to Alexa. The Alexa platform is acting as an intermediary.

HOMEKIT OPTIONS

And here is yet Another example using official Hue integrations. I am using the Hue bridge to bring the click switch into Apple home. And there I have an automation set up so that it controls a Hunter Fan. Again, the Hunter Fan is not connected to the Phillips Hue Bridge. It is using Apple HomeKit as an intermediary.

SMARTTHINGS OPTIONS

In order to do the same thing with a different platform, we’re going to use SmartThings as the intermediary, but using an unofficial integration via the custom edge driver. :sunglasses:

I don’t expect the run less wire tech-support to know about the unofficial community created options for the SmartThings platform, but I am surprised that they don’t know about the Alexa routines option and the HomeKit automations option since they advertise both integrations on their own site, and even give the example of using HomeKit to have the click switches control sprinklers or outdoor plugs which are not connected to a hue bridge. :thinking:


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