upgrade connect bridge to model 2 for homekit

I just received my CONNECT-BDG2-1 to replace the CONNECT-BDG-1 (gotta love that model numbering).

TL;DR: the RadioRa2/HomeKit integration works great (much better than the Alexa integration in my limited experience), but installation/setup was a pain, insult to injury atop having to purchase the connect bridge twice.

I upgraded my Windows programming VM from 10.6 to 11.0 of the RadioRa2 software, opened my .10.6 project, got offered to convert it to 11.0 format, and I noticed that the upgrade had transparently (without asking me) changed the type of the existing connect bridge already in the project from CONNECT-BDG to CONNECT-BDG2. The "find connect bridge" screen could see both the old one and the new one (old one with a red dot showing disconnected, new one with a green dot showing connected); I upgraded the main repeater firmware to 11.0 without incident, and did a transfer, all no problem on the programming side from the Windows machine.

Then I launched the LutronConnect app on my iPhone, and it just said "Connecting" for about 30 seconds, then "unable to connect". Retry didn't work. After a few tries I thought maybe the "home" in the app is mapped directly to the Connect Bridge, so I went into settings, "Add home", and redid setup from scratch (using the same email address/Lutron account). When this completed, I had 2 copies of the same home (in addition to other homes that were already set up), the new one that worked, the old one that didn't.

But, the new home I just set up was missing all favorites and all integrations (Nest, Sonos, etc).

And, I haven't been able to delete the old home from the app, so now I have 2 copies of the same name, and need to stay away from the "old" one (if I select it by accident, it triggers the "connecting..." spinner for about a minute, no way to cancel, then says "failed to connect"). If at that point I go to settings, edit home, remove home, confirm with "delete home", nothing happens.

So, it seems the upgrade path from the original connect bridge to the one that supports homekit is
- pay full price for the hardware again
- install it and configure it from the Windows side
- set it up as a brand new home on the iOS side
- spend another 20 minutes redoing integrations and favorites
- deal with stale homes in my account switcher

I called Lutron support and they tried to help but it seems they're pretty new to this -- I got put on hold a couple times while the (overall very helpful) support agent looked stuff up -- and his recommendation was I change the email address on my account to a dummy one, then re-register for a whole new Lutron account and start over from scratch. I said I wasn't willing to do that because I'd lose access to the other 2 homes that are still working fine, and plus, even if I did that, I'd still be redoing favorites and integrations.

Overall I think if Lutron is going to charge us twice for the connect bridge they could have at least made the upgrade process transparent and easy.

I got my new bridge today and am not looking forward to this. I think removing the bridge old (silent rage) from the account before starting the process might help.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by metamatt

Then I launched the LutronConnect app on my iPhone, and it just said "Connecting" for about 30 seconds, then "unable to connect". Retry didn't work. After a few tries I thought maybe the "home" in the app is mapped directly to the Connect Bridge, so I went into settings, "Add home", and redid setup from scratch (using the same email address/Lutron account). When this completed, I had 2 copies of the same home (in addition to other homes that were already set up), the new one that worked, the old one that didn't.

But, the new home I just set up was missing all favorites and all integrations (Nest, Sonos, etc).

And, I haven't been able to delete the old home from the app, so now I have 2 copies of the same name, and need to stay away from the "old" one (if I select it by accident, it triggers the "connecting..." spinner for about a minute, no way to cancel, then says "failed to connect"). If at that point I go to settings, edit home, remove home, confirm with "delete home", nothing happens.

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The homes are also stored in your phone/device with the app data. I use my phone for installs and support sometimes so if I go to Nest settings I can see 5 different homes. I just ignore them but to delete them you need to delete the app off your device and reboot it. Then add the app back in and log in. You will loose favorite scenes and thermostats again because those are only stored on the device not the bridge or main repeater.

After I wrote my above post, I wondered what would happen if I plugged the old connect bridge in (I'd disconnected it before connecting the model 2 one).

I connected the old one, leaving the new one connected, and fired up the iOS app, and switched to the "old" version of my house, and... it seemed to work, actually connected, downloaded the newer configuration that I'd transferred to the repeater, and showed my old favorites and icons etc. Then I tried to switch to the "new" version of my house and got an error message saying "this home no longer belongs to this account". Then I tried to switch back to the "old" version of my house and got the same "this home no longer belongs to this account" error message. I guess the system is generally not happy with 2 connect bridges active.

At this point, both "new" and "old" versions of my house had removed themselves from the account switcher. I went through adding the house _again_ as a new home, and it showed up fine -- good news is this time it didn't forget my favorites, whether those are stored server side or on my phone or on the connect bridge, they survived this transition. Bad news is after that, the "old" version of my house showed up in the account switcher again, so I still can't make that go away.

I found the doc I was looking for -- not linked anywhere obvious on Lutron's site that I noticed, or Google queries like "upgrade lutron connect bridge" -- I found it by a Google search for "remove home from account", wondering why that button doesn't seem to do anything in the app and if anyone else has noticed that problem.

The doc: http://www.lutron.com/TechnicalDocum...2_and_HWQS.pdf

Page 13, section 3.3, is about "Replacing a Lutron Connect Bridge version 1 to a Lutron ConnectBridge version 2", and it basically says... while the old one is still connected, remove it from the account, then disconnect the old bridge and connect the new one. It does warn you that you need to redo integrations (Sonos and Alexa). It doesn't warn you that you need to redo favorites.

Anyway, for me, the "remove home from account" button still doesn't work even when the old bridge is connected -- I get a confirmation dialog saying do I really mean it and I say yes, and apparently I'm then supposed to get another dialog saying to push the button on the connect bridge, but I don't.

I couldn't get "remove home from account" to work whatsoever, from that phone for that home. I could remove other homes from the account from that phone, and I eventually tried a different iOS device signed into the same Lutron account and was able to remove the offending home (after the confirmation dialog, it asked me to press the button on the connect bridge, then the remove happened). So now I got my account cleaned up. No clue why it wouldn't work from my main device though.

It seems like the set of homes is saved in the account (and is common to all devices signed into the account), but the favorites are saved in the device. When I sign into the same Lutron account on a new iOS device, it already sees the set of homes and I can switch between them, but they all have the default image and no favorites.

This fits with my experience earlier as shown on the Troubleshooting part of the forum. You might find some useful info here: https://forums.lutron.com/showthread...Not-Connecting