Lutron Caseta Integration

Plugins & Plugin Development General Plugin Discussion
#21

[quote=“cybrmage, post:20, topic:198609”][quote=“sjakub, post:19, topic:198609”]Despite the fact that according to the license in the source files, that plugin is not only open source,
but even uses GPL license.[/quote]

There are two files in the plugin that state a license… One is a file originally created as part of the underlying system that has been modified for for use by the plugin and is GPL. One is a file that was provided in the ALTUI package by amg0 and modified to give the plugin openLuup/ALTUI compatibility is a freeware license.

The rest of the files do not include a license statement, therefore they are NOT GPL… The functional code of the plugin is a copyright work, and as it has been released as free software, those that currently have the plugin have the right to USE the plugin. There is absolutely no right to distribute the plugin.

This is the reason that Vera Controls will not modify most of the plugins in the app marketplace themselves… Most plugins, although freely available, do not contain a license statement, and are therefore copyright works.[/quote]

So what you are saying, is that you took a GPLed software, modified and extended it, and you are releasing it under non-GPL license.
I hate to break it to you, but that’s not how GPL works.

You are correct, most files do not have any license information. I have assumed that the entire thing is under GPL (or compatible) license.
But let’s go with your “do not include a license statement, therefore they are not GPL” and are “copyright work”.
This makes them incompatible with GPL, which also means you have violated the license in the first place.

You are not respecting the license of the code you obtained to create your plugin, but you expect others to respect license of your code? Good one.

#22

[quote=“sjakub, post:21, topic:198609”]So what you are saying, is that you took a GPLed software, modified and extended it, and you are releasing it under non-GPL license.
I hate to break it to you, but that’s not how GPL works.[/quote]

I took a GPL piece of code… modified it and extended it. It is a stand alone piece of software. The plugin is NOT compiled against it. The plugin is not dependent on it, and can work perfectly well without it.

As such, it does not comprise part of the copyright work.

So… Hate to break it to you… It perfectly complies with the terms of the GPL. Maybe you should actually read the GPL (any version… they all have the same conditions in this regard…)

Your assumption is 100% incorrect. Under copyright law (and this is almost universal), if a license is not explicitly stated, the assumption is that all rights are reserved. Copyright protection of a work is automatic. All assumptions favor the copyright holder.

Be that as it may… You spend untold hundreds of hours working on a plugin, and you can distribute it in any way you feel appropriate. As far as this plugin (or any of my other plugins) is concerned… You did not create the work, you have no business distributing it.

#23

Just a quick workaround I found…

If you are in a bind, and happen to have a Logitech Harmony Hub, you can setup Lutron devices on the Harmony Hub (Harmony can connect directly to the Lutron smartHub), and use the Harmony remote plug-in to have Vera send the commands to the Harmony, which will relay to the Lutron Smart Hub.

i.e.

Vera → Harmony Hub → Lutron Smart Hub

Performance (lag) is not bad.

Not a long term solution, but it allowed me to get some critical scenes back online…

#24

+1 for the suggestion.

#25

I got tired of trying to find a “working” solution and just bought a Caseta Pro bridge. Problem solved and used the RadioRA2 plugin.

#26

This is fine and dandy for lights but, how does one use the Pico remotes? That is where I found the add features of Caseta a huge plus!

#27

I haven’t tried to integrate any of the pico remotes yet. Didn’t really see a need/purpose as they work independent and do what I want, turn on/off/dim the lights they are assigned to. What more functionality could I get from integrating into Vera? Use a pico remote as a scene controller? I suppose one could do that. Hmm…

#28

I just installed a couple of the Caseta lights with Pico remotes and would also be interested in setting them up for automation. There doesn’t seem to currently be a way to do that, but I am seeing that Amazon Alexa does integrate with both Vera and Caseta and am wondering how well that configuration could work together?

It looks like with the Caseta app & bridge you could setup scenes (if needed) and/or issue commands via Alexa. Alexa could also (?) pair up with Vera to control those devices as well (except for locks) so Alexa could be a decent way to bridge the two together.

My wife doesn’t care to use apps to do any of this, but I think she’d enjoy the simplicity of the voice commands.

Am I missing something?

#29

[quote=“ClovisJack, post:28, topic:198609”]I just installed a couple of the Caseta lights with Pico remotes and would also be interested in setting them up for automation. There doesn’t seem to currently be a way to do that, but I am seeing that Amazon Alexa does integrate with both Vera and Caseta and am wondering how well that configuration could work together?

It looks like with the Caseta app & bridge you could setup scenes (if needed) and/or issue commands via Alexa. Alexa could also (?) pair up with Vera to control those devices as well (except for locks) so Alexa could be a decent way to bridge the two together.

My wife doesn’t care to use apps to do any of this, but I think she’d enjoy the simplicity of the voice commands.

Am I missing something?[/quote]

If you have the Caseta PRO bridge then use the Lutron RadioRA2 app in the Vera app store. You will have to enable integration ie telnet on the bridge through the app, then generate the integration report and email it to yourself so you can have the device ID’s to setup the plugin.

If you don’t have the Caseta PRO bridge then you are out of luck with Vera.

Alexa can work directly with a Lutron Caseta bridge (any version) to provide voice control of your switches. However that’s all you get is voice control or control using the Alexa app on your phone, but why bother when you also have the caseta app on your phone.

#30

I have the Caseta Pro bridge and would like to get my collection of 4-button Pico Scene controllers working with the Vera RadioRa plugin since the caseta plugin is defunct now. I see by telnetting into the bridge that the scene controllers input commands into the bridge via the format

~DEVICE,[device ID],[BN+7],3 ~DEVICE,[device ID],[BN+7],4 where BN is button number (between 1-4)

for example when I push button 3 on device 20 (4-button pico scene ctrlr) I see
~DEVICE,20,10,3
~DEVICE,20,10,4

and when I push button 2 on device 20 I see
~DEVICE,20,9,3
~DEVICE,20,9,4

in the telnet interfacial buffer. I suspect the “,3” is the send command and the “,4” may be a confirmation to something to somewhere (but I haven’t read up on it and have no idea what is actually happening).

I considered writing a python script on a beaglebone (or maybe a cron job on the vera?) to telent into the Caseta hub, watch for such commands, and make a path for Vera to watch the beaglebone to see when a scene controller is pushed. But I suspect that this is exactly the sort of activity already performed by the RadioRa plugin with hopefully some sort of interrupts instead of timing 1-min increments by cron). I am not a Vera programmer so I’m sort of low impact in this regard.

I tried to monkey with the RadioRa plugin to recognize the Pico scene controller remote by:

  1. Adding a 4-button keypad to the RadioRa root device
  2. In the compnentNumber field in the Variables tab I added “11,10,9,8,0,0” which I hoped would be buttons 4-1 since that is what I see by telnet into the Caseta hub.
  3. When this didn’t work, I added a “3” to KeypadCommand in Variables for the keypad since the telnet commands always end in a 3, hoping this would help but it didn’t.

In summary, I suspect it would be pretty easy to make the RadioRa plugin work with pico scene controllers in the Caseta pro hub if one wanted it to happen. Forgive my quick jump into a long thread about this, but who wrote the RadioRa plugin, and how much do I have to pay them to add some pico remote functionality to it. Seems like it would be pretty quick to implement.

Thanks!
-b

#31

Did they ever send you the samples?

#32

Did you ever get your Picos integrated properly?

#33

Thanks for the question. I spent over three years wrestling with my Vera Plus and over that time never got my Pico remotes working properly.

Around 6 months ago I purchased a Hubitat, and am absolutely happy with the stability and even more, the support. They update their code multiple times a month, and twice I have had Bruce, the guy that wrote/maintains the code that executes rules (‘Rule Machine’) reply in the forums and update the code within a few days if I had an issue. This is common with other users too. I had more working in Hubitat within a week than in years of Vera. It now controls around 75 devices and has literally been months since I have to reconfigure anything (including 15 motion sensors for various motion lighting areas) and I actually sort of forgot how much it is doing because I don’t have to think about it. I don’t even visit the hubitat forum anymore, no need. My house simply does what it is supposed to do. I asked a few questions about Picos on the Hubitat forum, you can search my username as he_bp there. Note I haven’t posted there in months.

Below I’ll paste what the Lutron integration looks like in Hubitat. First you load the “Lutron Integration App” which is built in, then you edit the device that is created to have the IP address of your Caseta hub. Then you populate the text field with your lutron devices as shown. Then it works and you have no problems. The entire setup took literally 30 mins to get the whole house working. I continue to be blown away by how things actually ‘work’ after working with Vera for years. So much so, I sort of forgot how much it is doing with no maintenance. Thanks for reminding me.

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#34

People still use Vera? go figure…

Like @verabp replied already. If you want Caseta integration or Pico’s Hubitat has a great integration. If you want to take it to the PRO level you need to look at CQC as it makes everything else look like a toy.

#35

Thanks for the response. I think I’ll try to get it working for a bit longer before consider switching to something esle. I have a ticket in with Support as well and am hoping that they can come up with a solution.

#36

I just looked up CQC but still don’t have a good feel for it. Can you let me know what you like about it, I had never heard of it before but am always interested in seeing what is good out there. Cheers!

#37

Up front it’s NOT EASY. So be aware of that. It’s a very complex system but has THE BEST support of any company and system I’ve ever worked with and used.

First thing everyone wants after setup… A nice User Interface or a Dashboard to show off right? Family interaction with the system. Being able to see things and control it. CQC has one of the best Visual UI designers of the top systems out there. Everyone knows about HomeSeer and HSTouch… CQC UI designer is FAR better and… IT WORKS.

Next up is media. Integrating Sonos, or Denon or Yamaha or whatever. There’s a driver. I just integrated my Sonos system tonight in two completely different capabilities and they work together. There’s a ton of capability to integrate media, av receivers, tv’s etc etc

If you’re huge into Z-Wave well CQC supports it. In a different manner because CQC is NOT a Z-Wave based system. So if you’re really big with Z-Wave it probably is not the right system for you. But if you have Insteon or UPB or Lutron Caseta or Lutron RA2 then it’s definitely the best for lighting.

Security systems main two are fully integrated (DSC and ELK) there’s probably drivers for others but I haven’t checked.

Essentially there’s not much if anything I’ve found YET that CQC can’t do. The issue is that it’s a very robust and capable system which also means it’s going to be complex and not easy. The Administration Interface is that. It’s for Admin not for users. Speaking of CQC fully supports security and multiple users at different levels even from the User Interface users and zones can be defined for access etc.

Now I’m sounding like a fan boy but really I’m not I’m just learning this system myself. I used vera and well… I went to HomeSeer for a few years and I got really tired of z-wave and problems so I went full on Insteon with ISY and the ISY is great and I’m keeping that but it’s mostly just Insteon and a very good program logic engine. CQC can control the ISY and everything else. So CQC is the Controller of Controllers. In fact it could control the Vera as well because I’ve integrated Vera with HomeSeer and I know it’s possible the same as how OpenLuup integrates so… there are always options.

#38

Thanks for this, it really helps try to initially navigate CQC.

#39

It’s worth the trial run. I really don’t want to scare you away but you have to be ready for learning something completely new and complex. It’s almost like learning a programming language itself. However if you use PLEG and are comfortable with that then it’s actually not that hard :slight_smile: