Fan control via Lutron Pico for non Caseta fan switches

For those of us who migrated from Wink, one of the good things about it was that it had a Lutron clear connect radio and protocols built in. This also limited the opportunity to pick up the newer Lutron Fan switches and be able to use the Pico fan remotes. Most, like me, ended up picking up the GE ZWave plus fan switches. Don't get me wrong, those switches work like a charm - just don't have the fan remote!
Hubitat, Lutron Pro hub, the cheap $15 Lutron Picos & Rule Machine to the rescue :slight_smile:
Here are two options that I played with (with support and help from the awesome :+1: :brain: community here). These should work for any other non Lutron fan switch as well as long as Hubitat is connected to them and can control them
Option 1:

  1. In the button controller, setup a five button pico with each button (from bottom to top) having these speeds: Off, Low, Medium, High, On
  2. On just turns the fan on - to what ever speed it was the last time
  3. Sharpie on the edge says Fan & there are small enough (readable :bookmark:) dots to show the speed on the remote

Option 2 (Mimicking the Lutron fan pico):

  1. In the button controller, setup a five button pico with the top and bottom buttons to turn the fan on and off
  2. Center button preset to mimic favorite speed
  3. For the up & down buttons - use "Set Dimmers -> Adjust these dimmers -> Select the GE Fan switch -> By this amount"
    For the up switch, I set the amount as 25
    For the down switch, I set the amount as -25
  4. Sharpie on the edge says Fan

Works like a charm :slight_smile:
Thanks to @bertabcd1234 for guiding me thru this back in the day :+1:

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I propose an Option 3: :smiley:

  • Button 2 to cycle the fan thru it's speeds from Off to Low to Medium to High then back to Off.
  • Button 3 to toggle the light in the fan
  • Button 4 to turn off fan from any speed

That leaves me Button 1 and 5 to control other things.

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Option 4 is use an app called Advanced Button Controller written by a forum member @stephack that has a ton of options.

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:point_up: This is exactly what I use as well! Works great!

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Absolutely possible - the options are endless with the button controller, rule machine and additional drivers :+1: . The two options I used, were in an attempt to emulate Lutron Fan Picos. Oh, & don't forget the options for button press and press and hold - those increase the # of actions each 5 button pico can perform :slight_smile:

Strange that I couldn't get the Lutron Pico remote for Fans to work, but I was able to get a regular Lutron Pico remote for Lights to work.

Care to explain? What issues are you seeing?

Working fine for me... :thinking:

Here is what my 'Fan Pico' looks like in Hubitat.

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Did you use the special Pico Fan remote that Lutron sells, or did you use the regular Pico remote?

The special fan remote has pictures of fan blades on the top and bottom buttons. It is model number PJ2-3BRL-WH-F01R.

I bought and tried to use the special Fan remote and couldn't get it to work with the Hubitat Button Controller app to control a GE/Jasco Enbrighten Fan Control in-wall switch. But a regular Pico remote, that came with a Caseta in-wall dimmer, was able to be programmed to control the GE/Jasco Fan Control switch.

I wanted to use the special Fan remote because it had images of fan blades printed on it already, instead of light bulbs.

The Fan Pico, as shown below (far left)

I finally figured out why the Lutron Fan Pico wouldn't work to control a GE/Jasco In-Wall Fan Controller through the Button Controller app.

When the Lutron Integration brought the Fan Pico over to Hubitat, it used the Lutron Fast Pico driver. Something about that driver didn't work but as soon as I switched the Fan Pico over to the regular Lutron Pico driver, it worked fine.

In theory both drivers should have worked, but it seems for my system, HE C-5, only the regular Pico driver works with this special Fan Pico remote.

Weird. I thought these Pico were all identical except for the engraving.