I'd like to use a keypad to kick off activities for the theater room i'm building. More specifically, a "Movie" button (turns on lights, starts a Logitech Harmony Activity), "TV" and then "Room Off".
If using a hybrid keypad - does Hubitat treat the keypad and dimmer as separate devices? Would anything need to be done on the Lutron programming side to (if possible) accomplish that?
My intended purpose would be to have the keypad function only as a keypad separate from the lighting load. From within Hubitat I would like to be able to control the dimmer portion of the keypad separately.
So the "Movie" button would within Hubitat:
Turn on dimmer/lights
Kick-off a Logitech Harmony Activity.
Plex will be used. I'm currently using a Plex add-on called 'Tautulli' in combination with the Maker API app to control lights(Lights fade off when a movie starts, turn on to a low level when paused, etc). I'd like to use the dimmer built in the Hybrid keypad for this purpose(if possible?).
I'm using the Lutron Integrator app with several pico remotes and a Caseta Pro hub - so i'm familiar with that side of it but not really sure what to expect when integrating with RadioRA 2.
I'm pretty sure this is easy to do. The hybrid keypad certainly sends the button pushed and released events for each button. I forget how you designate which button controls the load, and in any event that would be setup in the Essentials (or Inclusive) software for RA2. I'll take a look myself to see if I can be reminded of what's needed there.
Hybrid keypads don't have to have any buttons dedicated to the load that is running through them.
My advice for control of "large" scenes (ones with lots of dimmers/switches) is to program those in the Lutron software on keypad or phantom buttons. You can then layer non-Lutron devices onto that scene in Hubitat. You will get higher performance (faster, no popcorning) as there is a single button push command sent from Hubitat to the Main Repeater.
To program the keypad raise/lower buttons in Hubitat you have to first program them to do nothing in the Lutron software (make the button type Raise/Lower programmed device and have it control nothing). Then you have to set the keypad device driver to 19 buttons in Hubitat. Button 18 is the lower button and 19 is raise. Both only send push events to the Telnet output, so you can't have push/hold/release actions in Hubitat.
When you say control of large scenes - is that on the Lutron side only? The only Lutron dimmer will be the one that is built into the keypad. In reading - it sounds like it might be advantageous to do that programming on the Lutron side.
For example - I would like the lights to fade-off slowly when a movie starts. So if I understand correctly, it might be better to set that up as part of a scene within Lutron so Hubitat would be sending a scene command instead of a dim command?
More or less. If you set a scene for Lutron devices in the Lutron software then Hubitat can send a single message - a button push - to the Main Repeater. Then the Main Repeater sends the Lutron-defined scene states and levels to the individual Lutron devices.
That is more efficient than Hubitat sending individual messages to each Lutron dimmer, still via the Main Repeater. This can be an issue especially when Picos are used. Picos, unlike keypads, are transmit only devices and can create communications bottlenecks when used to control Lutron devices via Hubitat. In the Hubitat individual device scenario the communications pathway is Pico → Main Repeater → Hubitat → Main Repeater → Lutron Dimmer. The Lutron control path is Pico → Main Repeater → Lutron Dimmer.
If you only have 1 Lutron dimmer in the scene the performance won't really be different if controlled via a Lutron or Hubitat command.
Fade levels in the RadioRA 2 dimmers are programmable, but semi-fixed as they are only changeable via the Lutron programming software. (The defaults are 0.75 seconds for 'on' and 2.5 seconds for 'off'.) If you want a different, slower fade rate as part of a movie scene you will need to use Hubitat programming.