I currently have a couple 3-way dumb circuits in my home that I want to make smart and have smart dimmable bulbs attached. I have been told previously that having the bulbs always have power and then turn the bulbs directly on/off from HE is the best way to control them.
I have no experience with the Lutron Caseta Pico remotes but if I understand them correctly, I would be able to use them to control my lights if I directly tie the lights to power and not through a dumb switch? Am I correct in thinking that? My thought is to hardwire the lights directly to power and put a Pico where the current switches are and control the on/off/dim function of the lights through HE.
Yes, you should be able to do that. The Pico can be configured to control almost anything that can be controlled with a button in Hubitat. Lutron makes some neat mounting options for the Pico so it looks just like a wall-mounted switch. You can mount them flush (where no electrical box currently exists) or over an existing box. I have done this with all my 2-Way circuits. One end gets a Lutron dimmer, the other end the wires are tied together and a Pico is mounted over the box. Since you are using the smart bulbs you don't need the Lutron dimmer, you can just use the Picos.
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You do still need a Lutron Caseta Pro hub to be the (Telnet) interface to Hubitat over your LAN.
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I knew about needing the hub, but thank you for the heads up. Is there a noticeable delay between the button press and the light changing since it is going through a second hub?
Oh no!! It's so fast the first time you try it you will start to giggle.
You'll start to look around for people to show it to. Really!
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I don't have any smart bulbs yet so I can't comment on your specific use case. Community members are reporting that there is a bit of a delay when you use a Pico through Hubitat (i.e., Button Manager) to control a light on the Lutron hub. We theorize this is due to the Telnet back-and-forth (Lutron-to-Hubitat-to-Lutron). You would not see that in your configuration. I have most of my Picos paired to one or more Lutron dimmers or switches directly - those are lightning fast but they don't touch Hubitat at all.
I have around a 500ms delay, but I’m not using the Fast Pico setup on any of my lights. So it could be faster, but it’s fast enough for me.
The thing about these delays everyone talks about is it’s really hard to tell the difference between 300ms and 500ms. Bottom line, it is fast and reliable.
Ok, that's reasonable. What is the Fast Pico setup?
It sends the signal on the push, instead of the release of the Pico button
The lutron stuff is so fast you'd be hard pressed in my house to decide which is an actual switch or a pico mounted in a switch plate.
The cost of the Caseta Pro hub will be immediately justified once you connect your first 3-way switch. You'll see why many of us here drink the Caseta Kool-Aid.
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I am using a Hue Dimmer remote paired with the HE hub to control some Hue bulbs. There is a small delay with this button as well. I also have Aeon Zwave Minimotes that I can push the button fast enough to flash the Hue bulbs paired to the Hue hub. The Hue Dimmer remote is larger than the Picos, and as a single gang switch it looks and works really well. If you want to add it to multi gang switches, it doesn't look as good. It also doesn't require a hub.
Yep I have one. Mounted over where the light switch was in my bedroom (hot and load are tied together behind it). Not a fan of its looks or its quality vs the Pico. Will probably replace it with a Pico at some point.
I find the delay with that about the same as the Pico. The only thing faster (that uses Zigbee) are the 5 Lutron Connected Bulb Remotes I have around the house, because they are paired directly to the bulbs in addition to the Hue Bridge.
I didn't mean to post the reply to you.
The Picos were nice and at times I regret getting rid of my Lutron stuff.
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