Multiple Smart Bridge Pro on the same Job?

[davisadm]

Caseta will work fine, and at less than 1/3 the cost of Radio RA2. Multiple Caseta systems installed together does not make a "cobbled" system, and it will work correctly. I understand why RadioRA2 dealers want to sell this much more expensive system (and profitable). For what Phillip has described, Caseta will work fine when set up correctly, which is not difficult.

[naudenried]

A few weeks ago I joined the forum so that I could see if perhaps I could get some design suggestions. My post was never approved, you can't email the moderator(s) and so I just gave up. Today, researching the matter again I decided to see if I had been authenticated - and I had! But my post was never approved. It was held for moderation and in a rookie mistake I did not copy and retain what I had written... Maybe if a/the mod sees this post they can look for my previous submission and approve it?

I have dabbled with Z-wave technology and I am a highly experienced home network builder. I am finishing up a new construction build on our very rural property. We are two hours from the nearest major city so I am on my own with design and implementation. I would like to get it right the first time without learning that I cannot do what I want after buying a bunch of gear. I want to do a lot, but I am going to boil it down to these factors:

1 - Current 2500 square foot residence that is long to maximize our view into the woods.
2 - Current outbuilding that is about 70' away.
3 - Just completing a 5000 (50'x100') square foot shop with an apartment inside and a welded steel storm shelter under the slab below the apartment.

The furthest point is from the east end of the existing home to the west end of the new shop and that distance is ~250'. And the shop is steel so effectively a Faraday cage. Ditto the storm shelter. A Faraday cage inside of a Faraday cage. That is the setup.

I am running a mesh network with seven routers, so I have WiFi everywhere. Even in the storm shelter. But lighting control is vexing me. My electrician loves Lutron products and so I am trying to see if I can do a Lutron solution.

Again, I want do a lot of things throughout all three buildings, but the distances involved present issues. At the far end of the shop there are a couple of light switches I want to integrate into my setup so that I can turn them on and off via a phone app or some other method so that I do not have to physically go there. From the apartment to that far end is about 75’. From the other buildings on the property it is obviously much further than that. Basically all options are on the table, except for the fact that I will have to do this myself.

Using a single Smart Bridge Pro, even with the one range extender (Why is that limited? It seems like a real impediment to my solution and something Lutron should try and fix.), won't get it done. Z-wave controller manufacturer's (Wink, SmartThings) are going to a monthly subscription model. Where I formerly could hook several Z-wave controllers up with Ethernet and essentially have a mesh setup, now I would be looking at paying the monthly fee on maybe 5-6 of them. That is nuts. Sure, I'll pay a monthly recurring fee for one, but 5-6? No.

The OP started this thing asking about using multiple Smart Bridge Pro devices on the same job. I hoped when I opened it someone would have really fleshed out how to setup something that I could replicate, but I don't see that from the replies. So, how do I get to where I want to be with this project?

Thanks!

Phillip

i have a very similar set up, I have 1700 square feet and then a 6000 square foot shop about 160 feet behind my house.

have you gotten all set up with caseta? If so how has it been reliability wise and how was it setting up two bridges? or did you end up going with RA2?

Thank you!

[randyc]

There is no technical issue with having multiple Caseta bridges in the same home. You only need 1 email/Lutron account. You treat each bridge like a separate home. Instead of something like "Raleigh Home" and "Beach House" you might have "1st Floor" and "2nd Floor." They won't talk to each other so you will need to switch "homes" in the app. That's pretty easy to do.

It's not fair to compare RA2 and Caseta based on price alone. That's like comparing a $30k Ford to a $60k BMW. The have some similar features but they are not the same. A couple of biggies is RA2 supports up to 200 devices as a single system, has true keypads, and operates as a single system.

[silverton]

Hubitat works well with Multiple hubs. It also works well with RA2 Select and Caseta in the same house.

[silverton]

You can use two smart Hub Pros with a third party hub. I would suggest Hubitat for that. It works great. You may also consider using the new Diva and Clara and use three ways so that you might be able to do the house in with 75 devices (three ways to not count). I have done this in homes that are 5000 square feet.

Also I have used a Smart Hub Pro and a RA2 select together with Hubitat.

[threeb]

As part of the initialization process the bridge looks for nearby systems and will choose a channel that doesn't interfere. Unless you have 2 bridges doing initialization at the exact same time, there should be no interference.

This comment is the only place on the internet I've seen any mention that Caseta RF channels can be changed (more specifically, auto-assigned). Everywhere else I've heard it stated this is not possible. In fact, the only place I've seen mention of being able to change ClearConnect RF channels at all is with RA2/RA3 (full version) or HomeWorks. If you're using Picos with these systems they supposedly need to be manually configured on the Pico itself to broadcast on the non-default channel.

I've tried setting up two Caseta systems both configured as a separate homes under the same account or setup independently under a different account. In both situations the bridges were within 10ft of each other during setup and the RF channel seems to be set the same. They were set up at different times. The reason I know they are the same is that when a Pico paired with Caseta system A is pressed, then Caseta system B will not process any IP integration commands or Lutron App until that Pico on the other system stops broadcasting. This is the expected behavior, btw, which is why I was seeking to see if the channels could be changed. Clearly one Caseta hub is 'hearing' RF from the other system. I've tried this any number of times and setup the hubs different ways.

I hope I'm wrong though and there is a solution for this. Have you had any luck getting multiple systems to be on different channels?

[grstroes]

I have done this very thing. We have a 5000 sq home shaped like a "U". So distances are long. There is an attached 1000 sq ft garage, and a separate 2000 sq ft barn. I have Ethernet cable running from the router in the main house to the barn and garage, and to the two "wings" of the U-shaped house. The barn has one smart bridge and one extender. The main room in the house has a smart bridge and the garage has a smart bridge. So far everything works just great. I only used one email address, and just called each space by its name (barn, garage, house etc).
I plan to add two more smart bridges in the "wings" of the main house, linked by Ethernet to the router. The bridges will be far enough apart that they should not "see" each other.
All structures are entirely clad in metal, both the siding and the roof.

[threeb]

Multiple Caseta hubs in the same home and on the same channel is a valid configuration. Even in the U-shaped configuration you describe, the bases will most-likely still 'see' each other's devices since the clear connect RF can go quite far despite its very conservative rating and stray signals will almost-certainly cross between hubs. However, this is for the most part a non-issue I think for most people and most-likely invisible to them. This issue really becomes clear however because of obvious lag when you press a pico button to trigger 3rd party automation system that itself controls Lutron lights. Example flow: Pico > Lutron Hub > 3rd party automation > Lutron Hub > Lights. That 3rd party automation can send commands to the Lutron hub near-instantaneously after being triggered by that same hub from a Pico press. However, the Lutron hub must wait for the pico that was pressed to stop transmitting before it can process the queued up integration command. Why would you control Lutron lights in this way? sufficed to say, reasons do exists.