How to setup Pico 4-button Keypad for 'Welcome' and 'Goodbye' scenes

[cliqk]

We want to be able to install Caseta systems for smaller projects as a true 'whole home' solution. One of the most desired features with our normal projects (RadioRa2 / Homeworks) is having a keypad at entry to control a 'welcome' and 'goodbye' scene. 'Welcome' needs to turn on a few main lights in the entry, hallway and maybe kitchen. It should leave all other lights alone. 'Goodbye' should turn off all lights.

The standard Pico remote doesn't do this, since the top button turns on all linked devices to full, not just a selection.

We just purchased some 4-button 'scene' Picos (shown here) and thought that might work. However, these do not seem to work either. For all off to work, you must add all lighting devices to this Pico. For scenes, we just want to control a subset of these lights and not at of them.



Has anyone else made this work somehow. I can't see how Caseta can be a truly 'whole home' solution without this.

Thanks!

[cliqk]

Any ideas or suggestions?

We want to be able to 'assign' a lighting scene to the 4B 'Scene Pico' buttons. The Caseta app does not allow you to 'assign' scenes to Pico buttons. You can only assign which lighting loads are associated with the Pico. The 4B Scene Pico automatically comes preset with 100%, 66%, 33% and 0. You can adjust these manually and then press/hold on one of the top three buttons to reassign the light levels.


However, you cannot ignore any light loads with your scene preset. That is the problem. For the top button, for example, we would like to assign a 'Welcome' scene. This scene would turn on only a couple lights (all other lights ignored). The bottom button we would like to assign a 'Goodbye' scene. This scene would turn off ALL lights in the apartment.

This can be easily done with RadioRA2 and Homeworks. Would be great if Lutron could add the ability to 'assign' scenes created in the Caseta app to Pico buttons. That would solve the situation above and would add the ability to remotely adjust Pico keypad scenes!

[asherrick]

According to SanDiegoRep this should be possible (link below). Have you tried it the way that he described?

https://forums.lutron.com/showthread...ull=1#post4775

[cliqk]

Thanks for the response. Unfortunately, this doesn't solve my problem. What I want to do is assign a Caseta scene to a Pico button. The way @SanDiegoRep suggests doing this for my 'Welcome' scene would be to assign all lights in the apartment to the Pico and then to manually adjust the few lights I want on and set the rest to 0%. But I don't want to turn off the other lights, I want to ignore them. However, if I don't include them and assign them to the Pico, then I can't have an 'All Off' scene.

If we could simply assign a Pico button to a Caseta scene created in the app, then problem solved.

According to SanDiegoRep this should be possible (link below). Have you tried it the way that he described?

https://forums.lutron.com/showthread...ull=1#post4775

[Kevin P.]

Thanks for the response. Unfortunately, this doesn't solve my problem. What I want to do is assign a Caseta scene to a Pico button. The way @SanDiegoRep suggests doing this for my 'Welcome' scene would be to assign all lights in the apartment to the Pico and then to manually adjust the few lights I want on and set the rest to 0%. But I don't want to turn off the other lights, I want to ignore them. However, if I don't include them and assign them to the Pico, then I can't have an 'All Off' scene.

If we could simply assign a Pico button to a Caseta scene created in the app, then problem solved.

cliqk,

Unfortunately, this is not a feature of the Caseta Wireless system. The devices cannot be unaffected from the buttons on a Pico. To accomplish this you will need to use RadioRA 2 or HomeWorks QS. Thank you for the feedback. I will pass this along to the development team.

Also, please be aware that Caseta Wireless is not designed as a "whole home" solution. Caseta is designed as a single room / main area control. The Smart Bridge has a range of 30ft and does not have any auxiliary devices to extend the range.

[cliqk]

Thanks for your response Kevin.

Although Caseta was not designed for 'whole home' control. Here in NYC, most apartments can be covered entirely by the single Smart Bridge. This makes Caseta an extremely appealing and cost-effective 'whole home' lighting control solution.

If we were able to assign scenes we create in the Caseta app to Pico buttons this would make this all possible. If we can't do this now, can I submit this as a feature request somewhere?

Thanks!

[Kevin P.]

Thanks for your response Kevin.

Although Caseta was not designed for 'whole home' control. Here in NYC, most apartments can be covered entirely by the single Smart Bridge. This makes Caseta an extremely appealing and cost-effective 'whole home' lighting control solution.

If we were able to assign scenes we create in the Caseta app to Pico buttons this would make this all possible. If we can't do this now, can I submit this as a feature request somewhere?

Thanks!

cliqk,

Thank you for the information. I have passed your request to our development team.

[Cincycaddy]

cliqk,
Also, please be aware that Caseta Wireless is not designed as a "whole home" solution. Caseta is designed as a single room / main area control. The Smart Bridge has a range of 30ft and does not have any auxiliary devices to extend the range.

Somewhat contradictory as there is the Smarthub that will control up to 49 devices, which for most homes apartments would suffice. Call me crazy but if you've got 49 devices in an area/room then you can afford to move up to RadioRA2. Let's just hope that the capabilities are expanded as time moves on.

Chris.

[TheVince]

Thanks for the response. Unfortunately, this doesn't solve my problem. What I want to do is assign a Caseta scene to a Pico button. The way @SanDiegoRep suggests doing this for my 'Welcome' scene would be to assign all lights in the apartment to the Pico and then to manually adjust the few lights I want on and set the rest to 0%. But I don't want to turn off the other lights, I want to ignore them. However, if I don't include them and assign them to the Pico, then I can't have an 'All Off' scene.

If we could simply assign a Pico button to a Caseta scene created in the app, then problem solved.

There is a way to do that, but it's unofficial and it would require additionnal (although cheap) hardware, and some knowledge of a programming language. Other than that, you might wanna check the official external integrators like Control4 or logitech, they probably have something that would work (at a price, of course).

I agree though that having a "Scene Pico" not being able able to control Scenes is kind of a turn off.

[TheVince]

Somewhat contradictory as there is the Smarthub that will control up to 49 devices, which for most homes apartments would suffice. Call me crazy but if you've got 49 devices in an area/room then you can afford to move up to RadioRA2. Let's just hope that the capabilities are expanded as time moves on.

Chris.

Amen! The SMB/Pro works for a small/average home. Definitely works for most apartment/condos. Mine is over 1500 square feets, and most walls are 8 inches thick of concrete (it's an old building, things were built solid back then!), and the whole place is controlled by a single SMBPro. I measured that the signal from the SMB to one of the store goes through about 50 feets of aire and 24 inches on hardened concrete. More than enough to handle any normal suburban house.

I'm also quite certain that the 49 devices limit is completely arbitrary, and that the SMB hardware could handle a lot more if it was programmed to.