Lutron Honeycomb Shades

[hart2hart]

I want to explore Lutron honeycomb shades with good local control and ability to control via eisy/ISY.
 
@bpwwer as you are node server royalty and appear to use these products, do you have suggestions? Are Serena Architectural Honeycomb Shades good product? I want good shades and good interface to control it. Does Radio ra2 factor in here for control as it was looking like next great thing from Lutron?

[bpwwer]

I have a couple of Triathalon honeycomb shades.  Initially, I had them controlled only by a Pico and that worked very well.  After getting a Caseta SmartBridge and re-writing the node server for it, it is also controllable via that.    However, that being said, I have them set to open at sunrise and close at sunset (via the SmartBridge) and almost never do anything else to control them. Because I have the smartbridge at the opposite end of house from the shades, every one in while, it will fail to control one of the shades and I have to hit the Pico to operate it.  

I'm not sure if there are limits to which shades work with which protocols as I only have Caseta compatible devices.  At some point I plan to get some RA3 devices and controller, but haven't  yet.

[hart2hart]

I have a couple of Triathalon honeycomb shades.  Initially, I had them controlled only by a Pico and that worked very well.  After getting a Caseta SmartBridge and re-writing the node server for it, it is also controllable via that.    However, that being said, I have them set to open at sunrise and close at sunset (via the SmartBridge) and almost never do anything else to control them. Because I have the smartbridge at the opposite end of house from the shades, every one in while, it will fail to control one of the shades and I have to hit the Pico to operate it.  
I'm not sure if there are limits to which shades work with which protocols as I only have Caseta compatible devices.  At some point I plan to get some RA3 devices and controller, but haven't  yet.

Thanks. I’ll look at the wired power Serena line with Caseta control so I can leverage all that’s been done here. Before Insteon came back from the dead, I was looking at radio ra3 as long term replacement but that’s back burner for now.

[hart2hart]

@bpwwer I installed 3 honeycomb shades today and as you described I have great control using Lutron’s 4 shade remote and the Lutron app with the Caseta Bridge.

If I install the trial nodeserver, is it simple process moving to purchased app when I confirm desire to add ISY/Eisy control?

[bpwwer]

Yes.  The trial and the licensed node server are the same, except the trial expires after 30 days.  I believe once you purchase the license, it replaces the trial license and the expiration is no longer checked.   Worse case, you'd need to re-install but that won't delete any configuration you've done or any nodes already created.

[hart2hart]

5 hours ago, bpwwer said:

Yes.  The trial and the licensed node server are the same, except the trial expires after 30 days.  I believe once you purchase the license, it replaces the trial license and the expiration is no longer checked.   Worse case, you'd need to re-install but that won't delete any configuration you've done or any nodes already created.

Not sure why I asked as I just bought it... I knew I wanted it and that you would guide me through whatever I couldn't figure out.  On to that LOL...

I've got a 4 shade remote (has 10 buttons) and it shows up from nodeserver with 5 nodes named "Shade Remote - A" through "Shade Remote - F".  Do you know how this might logically map to the physical remote.  I was kind of expecting each of the 10 buttons on the remote show as a node for a total of 10 nodes.  For example, my working plan was to press the "All Button" and then press the "Close or Open Button" via activating the represented node to open all or close all shades which I like because it mapped to the same logic as my old shades. I could go into more detail on why that's my desire but just know it would take advantage of logic already in place to open and close from my IR remote.

Next step... As expected, my 3 shades each show as a node.  Using the command mode in a scene supports open and close for each shade and can do the same from a program.  As a workaround to above... To Open and Close all 3 shades at the same time, I'm guessing that an All Shades Open scene and an All Shades Closed scene (with all 3 shades included with right command state set) are equivalent to a program(s) that runs the open or close method on each shade in sequential order.  Is that correct?

 

What are good values for short and long poll?

Edited April 2, 2023 by hart2hart

[bpwwer]

I don't think I've seen any info on a 10 button remote.  Which means it's not really supported in the node server.  The log should detect the remote and dump some information about it.  I'll need to see that info before I can add support for the remote.

I'm curious as to what it was detected as.  There's nothing in the node server that should create a node with a 'F' suffix. 

Yes, you can put the shades in a scene to control them all.  I believe you can group the shades in the Caseta app to allow them all to respond to a single button.  At least I somehow set my 2 up so that they only only remote that controls both.

The node server doesn't do any polling so it doesn't matter what you set the poll values to.

[hart2hart]

I don't think I've seen any info on a 10 button remote.  Which means it's not really supported in the node server.  The log should detect the remote and dump some information about it.  I'll need to see that info before I can add support for the remote.
I'm curious as to what it was detected as.  There's nothing in the node server that should create a node with a 'F' suffix. 
Yes, you can put the shades in a scene to control them all.  I believe you can group the shades in the Caseta app to allow them all to respond to a single button.  At least I somehow set my 2 up so that they only only remote that controls both.
The node server doesn't do any polling so it doesn't matter what you set the poll values to.

Thanks. Remote is https://assets.lutron.com/a/documents/085314.pdf

Where would I look in logs to find information on remote you referenced?

I just looked at remote again and I’d guess the 5 nodes might be groups 1,2,3,4, & All but without the additional action control buttons.

[TRI0N]

1 hour ago, hart2hart said:

Thanks. Remote is https://assets.lutron.com/a/documents/085314.pdf

Where would I look in logs to find information on remote you referenced?

I just looked at remote again and I’d guess the 5 nodes might be groups 1,2,3,4, & All but without the additional action control buttons.

You can also use SUN Node Server for sun position to open and close accordingly to too much sun heating a room etc. You can also use NOAA (not very reliable on current forecast. Not the node server developers fault. NOAA just reports Unknown a lot) to detect if Mostly Cloudy etc to avoid closing them.

TRI0N

[bpwwer]

@hart2hart I had no idea that's what the remote looked like.  Support for it is in the node server but it's completely wrong based on what the remote actually looks like.   Since it thinks it's supported, it won't dump any of the information it normally does for unsupported devices.

Some general information about Lutron remotes (mostly Pico's).  As I said, they are control devices.  When you press a button on the remote, it sends a button press event with info about what button was pressed and then it sends a button release event when you release the button.  The node server can detect the button press events and use that to trigger programs (and via a bit of a hack, scenes).

The node created for the button isn't a simulated button.  The node server cannot generate button press or button release events and send those to other devices.  The Caseta API doesn't have any way to do that.  That's why there's no "action" available in the node.   

I had assumed that the remote you have is similar to the other Pico remotes but it isn't.  I suspect that when you press one of the number button (or all), it doesn't actually send out any events, just sets internal remote state.  Then when you press the open/close/raise/lower or favorite button, it does send out an event.  So that may be what the 5 nodes represent.  There must be something different in the button pressed events depending on which number button was last pressed, but I don't know what that is.

With Lutron (at with the Caseta smartbridge) you can only control devices directly.  So if you want to control the shades from the node server, you'd use the shade nodes to do that.  You can't have the node server tell the remote to control the shades.

I think the only thing you might be able to do with the remote is something like this:

If the remote open button is pressed, run a program to do something

if the remote close button is pressed, run a different program

You can experiment and see if you can create a program that triggers on one of the buttons.  The way the node server configures the remote button nodes you should only have the option to trigger on button pressed.  I'd like to know if this works.

It probably maps A = Open, B = Close, C = favorite, D = Up/raise, E = Down/lower

 

[hart2hart]

2 hours ago, bpwwer said:

@hart2hart I had no idea that's what the remote looked like.  Support for it is in the node server but it's completely wrong based on what the remote actually looks like.   Since it thinks it's supported, it won't dump any of the information it normally does for unsupported devices.

Some general information about Lutron remotes (mostly Pico's).  As I said, they are control devices.  When you press a button on the remote, it sends a button press event with info about what button was pressed and then it sends a button release event when you release the button.  The node server can detect the button press events and use that to trigger programs (and via a bit of a hack, scenes).

The node created for the button isn't a simulated button.  The node server cannot generate button press or button release events and send those to other devices.  The Caseta API doesn't have any way to do that.  That's why there's no "action" available in the node.   

I had assumed that the remote you have is similar to the other Pico remotes but it isn't.  I suspect that when you press one of the number button (or all), it doesn't actually send out any events, just sets internal remote state.  Then when you press the open/close/raise/lower or favorite button, it does send out an event.  So that may be what the 5 nodes represent.  There must be something different in the button pressed events depending on which number button was last pressed, but I don't know what that is.

With Lutron (at with the Caseta smartbridge) you can only control devices directly.  So if you want to control the shades from the node server, you'd use the shade nodes to do that.  You can't have the node server tell the remote to control the shades.

I think the only thing you might be able to do with the remote is something like this:

If the remote open button is pressed, run a program to do something

if the remote close button is pressed, run a different program

You can experiment and see if you can create a program that triggers on one of the buttons.  The way the node server configures the remote button nodes you should only have the option to trigger on button pressed.  I'd like to know if this works.

It probably maps A = Open, B = Close, C = favorite, D = Up/raise, E = Down/lower

 

Thanks Bob, understood. I selected the remote in the Luron app and the virtual Open and Close buttons on the screen raised and lowered the shades.  It appears that the app does emulate the button presses on the physical remote.

I pressed the close button on the physical remote and following was in Caseta NS log when set at debug level.   Created a program to trigger on any of the NS Remote -A to -F nodes but they were not available as a trigger item.

 

2023-04-03 12:25:30,527 Thread-2 udi_interface DEBUG remote:btn_on_callback: Button on was Press

2023-04-03 12:25:30,528 Thread-2 udi_interface.interface DEBUG interface:send: PUBLISHING {'command': [{'address': 'device2_3', 'cmd': 'DON'}]}

2023-04-03 12:25:30,547 Thread-2 udi_interface DEBUG remote:btn_on_callback: Button on was Release

2023-04-03 12:25:30,691 MQTT udi_interface.interface DEBUG interface:_message: QUEUING incoming message command

2023-04-03 12:25:30,693 Command udi_interface.interface DEBUG interface:_parseInput: DEQUEING command

2023-04-03 12:25:30,701 Thread-2 udi_interface.node DEBUG node:setDriver: device4:Great Room:Left Shade Reporting set ST to 100 to Polyglot

2023-04-03 12:25:30,703 Thread-2 udi_interface.node DEBUG node:reportDriver: Updating value to 100

2023-04-03 12:25:30,703 Thread-2 udi_interface.interface DEBUG interface:send: PUBLISHING {'set': [{'address': 'device4', 'driver': 'ST', 'value': '100', 'uom': 79}]}

2023-04-03 12:25:30,705 Thread-2 udi_interface.node DEBUG node:setDriver: device4:Great Room:Left Shade Reporting set OL to 0 to Polyglot

2023-04-03 12:25:30,706 Thread-2 udi_interface.node DEBUG node:reportDriver: Updating value to 0

2023-04-03 12:25:30,707 Thread-2 udi_interface.interface DEBUG interface:send: PUBLISHING {'set': [{'address': 'device4', 'driver': 'OL', 'value': '0', 'uom': 51}]}

2023-04-03 12:25:30,728 Thread-2 udi_interface.node DEBUG node:setDriver: device5:Great Room:Right Shade Reporting set ST to 100 to Polyglot

2023-04-03 12:25:30,730 Thread-2 udi_interface.node DEBUG node:reportDriver: Updating value to 100

2023-04-03 12:25:30,730 Thread-2 udi_interface.interface DEBUG interface:send: PUBLISHING {'set': [{'address': 'device5', 'driver': 'ST', 'value': '100', 'uom': 79}]}

2023-04-03 12:25:30,732 Thread-2 udi_interface.node DEBUG node:setDriver: device5:Great Room:Right Shade Reporting set OL to 0 to Polyglot

2023-04-03 12:25:30,733 Thread-2 udi_interface.node DEBUG node:reportDriver: Updating value to 0

2023-04-03 12:25:30,734 Thread-2 udi_interface.interface DEBUG interface:send: PUBLISHING {'set': [{'address': 'device5', 'driver': 'OL', 'value': '0', 'uom': 51}]}

2023-04-03 12:25:30,753 Thread-2 udi_interface.node DEBUG node:setDriver: device6:Great Room:Middle Shade Reporting set ST to 100 to Polyglot

2023-04-03 12:25:30,755 Thread-2 udi_interface.node DEBUG node:reportDriver: Updating value to 100

2023-04-03 12:25:30,755 Thread-2 udi_interface.interface DEBUG interface:send: PUBLISHING {'set': [{'address': 'device6', 'driver': 'ST', 'value': '100', 'uom': 79}]}

2023-04-03 12:25:30,757 Thread-2 udi_interface.node DEBUG node:setDriver: device6:Great Room:Middle Shade Reporting set OL to 0 to Polyglot

2023-04-03 12:25:30,758 Thread-2 udi_interface.node DEBUG node:reportDriver: Updating value to 0

2023-04-03 12:25:30,759 Thread-2 udi_interface.interface DEBUG interface:send: PUBLISHING {'set': [{'address': 'device6', 'driver': 'OL', 'value': '0', 'uom': 51}]}

2023-04-03 12:25:30,942 MQTT udi_interface.interface INFO interface:_message: Successfully set device4 :: ST to 100 UOM 79

2023-04-03 12:25:31,262 MQTT udi_interface.interface INFO interface:_message: Successfully set device5 :: ST to 100 UOM 79

2023-04-03 12:25:31,301 MQTT udi_interface.interface INFO interface:_message: Successfully set device4 :: OL to 0 UOM 51

2023-04-03 12:25:31,400 MQTT udi_interface.interface INFO interface:_message: Successfully set device5 :: OL to 0 UOM 51

2023-04-03 12:25:31,651 MQTT udi_interface.interface INFO interface:_message: Successfully set device6 :: OL to 0 UOM 51

2023-04-03 12:25:31,694 MQTT udi_interface.interface INFO interface:_message: Successfully set device6 :: ST to 100 UOM 79

2023-04-03 12:25:39,574 MQTT udi_interface.interface DEBUG interface:_message: QUEUING incoming message shortPoll

2023-04-03 12:25:39,576 Command udi_interface.interface DEBUG interface:_parseInput: DEQUEING shortPoll

Edited April 3, 2023 by hart2hart

[bpwwer]

You'll only be able to trigger on control, not status.  You don't see something like this:

The Test_Pico is a 3 button Pico remote.  It might say "on" instead of "Button Pressed".

I believe the Lutron app creates that representation internally based on how you've linked the devices in the app.   The node server doesn't have that same ability.  The app isn't really communicating with the remote commanding the remote to send a specific button press event to the bridge, it just knows that the button is linked to the shade so it it sends out the command to the shade directly when you press the virtual button.

I don't know how Lutron tracks what is linked to a button press event.  The unofficial information I have on the Lutron API doesn't document any way to get that information from the bridge (assuming it is actually stored in the bridge and not in the app or in the cloud).

[hart2hart]

26 minutes ago, bpwwer said:

You'll only be able to trigger on control, not status.  You don't see something like this:

The Test_Pico is a 3 button Pico remote.  It might say "on" instead of "Button Pressed".

I believe the Lutron app creates that representation internally based on how you've linked the devices in the app.   The node server doesn't have that same ability.  The app isn't really communicating with the remote commanding the remote to send a specific button press event to the bridge, it just knows that the button is linked to the shade so it it sends out the command to the shade directly when you press the virtual button.

I don't know how Lutron tracks what is linked to a button press event.  The unofficial information I have on the Lutron API doesn't document any way to get that information from the bridge (assuming it is actually stored in the bridge and not in the app or in the cloud).

As always, you're correct.  When I selected Control the 5 devices were available with switched On as the option.  Shade Remote-A appeared to have been to close them.  I could see it triggered in the program summary and the True time was registered in the program summary.  Like you thought it did not know which or all shades were controlled.  Just that Close had been pressed last.  I don't anticipate using this feature, but time will tell -- glad it is an option.

I talked with Lutron Tech Support about the App representation of the Shaded Remote and it is in the cloud.  I changed which shades were controlled by the 1,2,3,4 buttons and it changed both in the app and when the physical remote button was pressed.  He said he thought this would have been more "hard-wired" if I hadn't added the remote to the App.  In fact, my physical programming of the remote to shade connection had been "lost" at some point since the Saturday install and all physical remote buttons were controlling all shades, so I fixed it without pulling ladder out to do button presses on the shades in second story windows!

Edited April 3, 2023 by hart2hart

[bpwwer]

I'm still curious if I'm missing something with the 1,2,3,4,all buttons.  I'll have to add some additional logging to the node server to check that.

Also, if you can check each of the other buttons and let me know which button mapped to which letter, I can update the node server to name them better. 

[hart2hart]

23 hours ago, bpwwer said:

I'm still curious if I'm missing something with the 1,2,3,4,all buttons.  I'll have to add some additional logging to the node server to check that.

Also, if you can check each of the other buttons and let me know which button mapped to which letter, I can update the node server to name them better. 

Hi Bob.  The letter to button map follows:

 

A - Open

B - Favorite

C - Close

D - Up

E - Down 

 

Thanks for your help.  I've got everything working well!

[bpwwer]

Thanks!  That's not how I thought they'd map.