Hello, i’ve been slowly converting my home to Lutron Caseta dimmers for a while and have recently decided to add SmartThings to the mix. I’ve just purchased the Hub and a motion sensor with much more to come… While testing i’m able to setup when there is motion to trigger a light, which works… however i’m trying to figure out how to trigger when there is no motion to turn off said light…
I know the easiest way to do this may be to bypass IFTTT and change the dimmer to a SmartThings compatible dimmer but for 2 reasons: 1. i’m very heavily invested in lutron caseta dimmers and 2. (more importantly) the lack of a neutral wire to switches…
I really like the engineering on Lutron Caseta. If IFTTT isn’t introducing too much lag for you, that’s great.
As far as how to do it, as you undoubtedly noticed, there’s no “inaction” if trigger for the smartthings channel, which is too bad.
You can still do it, but basically you have to have a SmartThings event that turns on a virtual switch after Inactivity, and then use that switch coming on to be your “if.”
I know there was an intention to add that to smart lighting, I just honestly don’t remember if it’s there.
If it’s not, there is some custom code that will do it:
If you haven’t used custom code was smart things before, here’s the FAQ for that:
First, though, I would check to see if the feature is available through smart lighting.
So this would be the steps:
create a virtual switch. Personally I would use a momentary button tile, because then it will always turn itself off again so it’s ready for the next use. But that’s up to you.
once you have that virtual switch created, make an IFTTT recipe that will turn off your Lutron Caseta light when that virtual switch comes on.
Now just add the code into SmartThings to turn the virtual switch on when there is an activity on the motion sensor.
Another way: create a binary virtual switch to “shadow” The Lutron switch, so that it is on when that switch is on and off when that which is off
I should note that if you find it easier to think of, you can also set it up so that the virtual switch gets turned off when there is an activity, not on. That way the virtual switch can represent the Caseta switch state.
If you want to do it that way, use a virtual binary switch instead of a momentary, and just make sure that you turn on the virtual switch with its own recipe whenever you turn on the Caseta switch. You can use the same motion detected trigger for both recipes.
i love the design/feel of the lutrons and yes there is some lag, but i plan to over come that in some areas with additional stuff… for example one of the bathrooms i plan to put some osram lighting strips under the sink area that will turn on hopefully while ifttt is doing its magic to trigger the main lutron switch…
will definitely look into the options that you threw out to me… will update on it…
Hey, just an update: everything worked as planned at motion, it triggered the lutron switch on and after a period of no motion it triggered off… the delay was really the determining factor… there was a lag of between 2~7 seconds for the trigger on… eventually what i did was replace the bathroom switches for ge zwave switches that tied directly into smartthings hub and by extension the motion sensor… that streamlined the entire experience… works great now… next mission is for some led light strips…
I think that’s what most people find. If your lighting automations are just based on time (“turn on the lights at sunset”) or are in another zone (“turn on the porch lights when the back door opens”) or you are turning lights off because of inactivity, then the IFTTT lag may be acceptable.
But if you want a motion sensor to trigger the lights coming on as soon as you walk into a room, any lag above one second will be annoying for most people.
Hello. I think this thread is a little old but I’ll ask anyway. I’m new to this HA stuff and have Lutron switches in my home with Lutron Hub and a v2 ST hub. I recently purchased 4 Aeon Motion Sensors and one is mounted in the ceiling on my main floor. Using IFTTT, when I walk in the main room, my kitchen light comes on. This works great!
My plan is to have motion sensor turn on the luton lights between the hours of xx:xx and xx:xx and then shut them off… maybe when there is no motion?
Here is the kicker though, as discussed here, I want the light to shut off when there is no motion. I read through the thread here and have no idea how to setup what you are discussing, Could someone walk me thru it please. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Because the SmartThings IFT TT channel does not have a “inactive motion” trigger, you have to daisychain this.
Using official smartlighting feature and have the motion sensor being inactive turn off a virtual switch.
Then use that virtual switch turning off to be the IFTTT “if.” And use the lutron switch being set to 0 as the “that.”
If you haven’t used virtual switches before, here’s the FAQ for that:
Then once you have the switch set up, it will show up in any list of switches, including Smart lighting automation. So then you’d have a smart lighting automation that looks something like this
You should also set up an automation so that motion on the sensor turns the switch on in the first place. But you don’t need to set up an IFTTT recipe for that, just a smart lighting automation to get the switch ready
Genius! Ok, got the vSwitch setup and the. Motion sensor turns it on. Now, when no motion is detected, how do I make it turn off my Lutron light switch?
Got it. Works great now. Thank you too much! This has bridged the 2 hubs and opened up a new playing field of possibilities for me. I have only invested in 3 Lutron dimmers. Maybe I should consider z-wave in-wall dimmers. Appreciate all the help.
I have a quick question.I want to use the Caseta inwall dimmers to control some lights. The only SmartThings integration I want is for SmartThings to notify if any of those lights are still on when the mode goes into Night Mode. Is this possible?
Not easily, because there’s no direct integration between Lutron and SmartThings.
The simplest indirect integration is to use IFTTT, which allows SmartThings to tell Lutron to turn the switch on or off. But there’s no call back – – if someone turns the lutron switch on either at the wall switch or through the Lutron app SmartThings won’t have any idea that it happened.
There is a more complex integration built by community member which requires a raspberry pi is an intermediate host. @njschwartz is the author, and you can ask him in his project thread for details on how that works.
I think that is a bit more than I want to do I guess I will just go with the Lutron Connected Bulb Remote. I have those working with the Hue Bulbs. Was looking for an easier option that didn’t require me to hot wire the light on switch.
Not sure what your setup is exactly but just so you know you can create scenes in the Lutron app and have them run at certain times. This might work if night mode always occurs at the same time. Just a thought…
If IFTTT isn’t introducing too much lag for you, that’s great.
I guess I will just go with the Lutron Connected Bulb Remote. I have those working with the Hue Bulbs. Was looking for an easier option that didn’t require me to hot wire the light on switch.