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

  1. #21
    I'd encourage you to give the Caseta system a try. Given Lutron's hardware legacy, they really are best-in-class. Their customer support is also top-notch. They very quickly replaced a switch that went bad on me and it showed up on my doorstep in just a couple of days.

    I too would love to see Lutron get more aggressive about supporting the HomeKit API, but everybody is taking baby steps here. Companies have a vested interest in protecting their own architectures and moving toward a common API is always something that happens slowly. I do believe that the HomeKit API will become a dominant force in the marketplace given the popularity of iOS, the tendency for Apple to make complex things easy, and the strength of the architecture itself.

    So, what is needed now, is for Lutron to do a good job taking advantage of this new opportunity. Home automation is not yet in the mainstream. HomeKit can take it there probably more than any other single architecture because it lets people enter the game at a very low price point. Lutron is absolutely best-in-class hardware for in-wall switches and they can do much to help HomeKit's growth by legitimizing it as something beyond a tinkerer's playground. Right now I'd give them a "B" on how well they're supporting it. The integration is fairly tight, but there are gaps.

    The Lutron software does not support native HomeKit scenes & automation and some of the hardware isn't fully integrated (e.g., the Pico remote issue we've been discussing). What appears to be the core issue is that Lutron is allowing HomeKit to control the Lutron hardware through the smart bridge, but not the other way around; one cannot (yet?) use Lutron hardware to drive HomeKit. If they can figure out how to enable this, they will quickly become the de facto platform on which to build HomeKit-based smart homes.

    The potential for them is huge and goes way beyond the table scraps of what things like the recently announced partnership with Sonos can do for their revenue growth. Just think how powerful voice + button controlled scene based lighting can be! I have to imagine that much of Lutron's profit is made on the switches, not the controllers. It's a "give away the razors and sell the blades" business model. If they can get comfortable with Apple and third party apps being the controllers, they can sell a TON of switches!

    I just hope they're listening... (he said knowing that Lutron employees do monitor these threads)

  2. #22
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2016
    Posts
    11
    Quote Originally Posted by Kevin P. View Post
    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.
    Maybe if the RadioRA 2 or HomeWorks QS bridge worked with homekit....

  3. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by SouthboHomeKitGuy View Post
    I'd encourage you to give the Caseta system a try. Given Lutron's hardware legacy, they really are best-in-class. Their customer support is also top-notch. They very quickly replaced a switch that went bad on me and it showed up on my doorstep in just a couple of days.

    I too would love to see Lutron get more aggressive about supporting the HomeKit API, but everybody is taking baby steps here. Companies have a vested interest in protecting their own architectures and moving toward a common API is always something that happens slowly. I do believe that the HomeKit API will become a dominant force in the marketplace given the popularity of iOS, the tendency for Apple to make complex things easy, and the strength of the architecture itself.

    So, what is needed now, is for Lutron to do a good job taking advantage of this new opportunity. Home automation is not yet in the mainstream. HomeKit can take it there probably more than any other single architecture because it lets people enter the game at a very low price point. Lutron is absolutely best-in-class hardware for in-wall switches and they can do much to help HomeKit's growth by legitimizing it as something beyond a tinkerer's playground. Right now I'd give them a "B" on how well they're supporting it. The integration is fairly tight, but there are gaps.

    The Lutron software does not support native HomeKit scenes & automation and some of the hardware isn't fully integrated (e.g., the Pico remote issue we've been discussing). What appears to be the core issue is that Lutron is allowing HomeKit to control the Lutron hardware through the smart bridge, but not the other way around; one cannot (yet?) use Lutron hardware to drive HomeKit. If they can figure out how to enable this, they will quickly become the de facto platform on which to build HomeKit-based smart homes.

    The potential for them is huge and goes way beyond the table scraps of what things like the recently announced partnership with Sonos can do for their revenue growth. Just think how powerful voice + button controlled scene based lighting can be! I have to imagine that much of Lutron's profit is made on the switches, not the controllers. It's a "give away the razors and sell the blades" business model. If they can get comfortable with Apple and third party apps being the controllers, they can sell a TON of switches!

    I just hope they're listening... (he said knowing that Lutron employees do monitor these threads)
    Totally agree with your thoughts here. It sounds like Lutron has some of the most mature lighting-centric home automation platforms, and their hardware is robust and reliable. It also sounds from numerous reviews here that their HomeKit integration is probably the most reliable/robust as well. I know HomeKit is still relatively new, and there are numerous limitations imposed by its frameworks that will make integration more challenging than the Wild West platforms like IFTTT. Where I get a little heartburn is the "radio silence" on future roadmaps. I know iOS will exist 10 years from now, but will Caseta, or RadioRA2? Will we ever see fan controls in Caseta? What about true (non-hack) scene controls? What about dimmers with preset "on" levels, or a "favorite" button? How about motion detection to trigger smart scenes based on conditions?

    My guess is that in two years, I'll be able to do 75% of this through a combination of Caseta and other non-Lutron HomeKit hardware. I could do 100% of it with RadioRA2 today, except for the HomeKit portion. Before I go out and buy $3500 worth of switches, remotes, and dimmers, I want to know the longevity and direction of the system I'm buying into. This is my hangup today. (in the meantime, I guess I'll live in the dark ages!)

    EDIT: Just want to add, look at Elgato communicates with their customers about their Eve line. Where they had shortcomings (inability to use their door sensor to trigger a HomeKit action), they called out the specific HomeKit framework reason, and said clearly that they would enable the feature as soon as the framework allowed it. (which they since have)

  4. #24
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Sep 2016
    Posts
    1
    I think I have figured out how to set "scenes" to individual buttons on pico remote device.

    1. Create regular "scenes" in Lutron app for desired lights like "Wellcome" and "Goodbye", make sure all devices are selected and for those not needed, they should be set to off.
    2. Add the 4 button pico remote device to your Lutron app, and add all devices to the pico remote that were used in setting your scenes in step 2.
    3. Using "Configure Homepage", go to "Lights and Shades" and add the remote device. It should be at the bottom.
    4. Using remote pico test to make sure the top button turns on all lights, and the other buttons work as expected to dim all lights or have all lights off.
    5. Now using Lutron app, set the "scene" to "Wellcome"
    6. Now using pico remote hold the button down you want to assign to "Wellcome" (maybe the top button) for ~6 seconds. You will see the LED light flicker when set.
    7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 for other scenes that you want to set to the other two buttons, the bottom button will still turn everything off.

    Congrats, you should now have scenes assigned to pico remote buttons!!

  5. #25
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Sep 2017
    Posts
    27
    A rep at Lutron Support said we can use the PJ2-4B-GWH-P01 (or P02 or P03, depending on the engraving) for true scene control in Caséta. The only problem is finding one of these.

    - - - Updated - - -

    A rep at Lutron Support said we can use the PJ2-4B-GWH-P01 (or P02 or P03, depending on the engraving) for true scene control in Caséta. The only problem is finding one of these.

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