Hello,
I am in the process of setting up HE + Lutron RadioRa2. With that said, Lutron officially announced the new RadioRa3 today. As a lot of speculation suggested Telnet goes away and LEAP becomes the go forward method for integration, and that was confirmed. RadioRa3 Announcement
Specifically, the gateway specs show LEAP as the integration, and no mention of Telnet. While I think this makes a lot of sense technically, I do worry about the DIY community like ours. Does the Integrator App use LEAP for the Caseta or RA Select integration?
Thank you for the reply and the welcome! I was afraid / worried that would be the case. I submitted my RadioRa2 order yesterday, so naturally the new stuff gets announced the day after.
Given the integration with HE (and everything else) uses Telnet today, I feel better about my decision to stick with Ra2 at this point. Hopefully in the future we figure out how to handle Ra3/LEAP.
Well considering the "majority" of us are using caseta at the moment (not denigrating those using ra2, I'm jealous you can afford it) are safe for now (unless they pull telnet from existing pro 2 hubs) I'm sure the guys are watching what's going on...
Agreed. I think Lutron has done a decent job of maintaining compatibility, but it has come at the expense of having different software and gateway/hub stacks. This new gateway maintains backwards compatibility with the Ra2 devices, which is cool. It also gives them the ability to use a common API for integration, opening up the phone app for RadioRa3 management. Smart for business and efficiency, but concerning for the DIY community unless they open LEAP up beyond the professional integrators. All in all, with the number of Telnet based deployments out there, I doubt they kill it in any short amount of time without a transition strategy. It would alienate the group of customers / partners they hope end up spending money on the new stuff.
Thanks again for the quick responses. I feel better about buying into "old" technology now.
But if the LEAP API is only going to be available to select (paid) partners like Control4/Crestron, then I am not interested. Funny, as I was finally coming around on Lutron.
But I have time to "wait and see" anyway. Also wish the new hub would support > 100 Ra3 devices.... Blah.
Interesting. So I guess Home Assistant must use a combination of LEAP and Telnet for their Caseta Pro integration, which supports motion sensors and Picos.
That would be unfortunate. The new style dimmers/switches may have pushed me over the edge. But I am pretty adamant on not buying things - especially expensive things - that don't integrate with 3rd parties in a reasonable way.
From the integration's documentation, it appears that it employs telnet to support Pico remotes because it explains telnet must be enabled.
Pico and Shade remotes require a RA2 Select Main Repeater (RR-SEL-REP2-BL) or Lutron Caséta Smart Bridge PRO (L-BDGPRO2-WH) with Telnet Support enabled in the Lutron app under Settings >> Advanced >> Integration
That is promising in my opinion. Perhaps telnet will still be buried in the new Ra3 system for backwards compatibility. This would buy time for LEAP to evolve and maybe Lutron to open it up more. In the meantime, I anxiously await my Ra2 package to arrive. Initially my buyers remorse was very high this morning, but as the day has gone on, its pretty much gone. Im sure I will have years of support with Ra2, and maybe the devices will be cheaper since the new stuff was announced.
RRA2 history indicates a stable RRA3 system is YEARS away.
-RRA2 is on software version 12 because they have been fixing bugs and improving compatibility for at least 11 years
-RRA2 had hardware bugs in their HVAC controllers, main repeater, etc.
I'm grateful that Lutron identifies issues and works to resolve them but if you care at all about a stable platform, I wouldn't touch RRA3 for at least 6 to 8 years.
We wanted to highlight a few things about Integration with Lutron Devices. Specifically focusing on Telnet and LEAP.
Telnet for existing systems like RadioRA 2 and HomeWorks QS is not going away. Those integrations will continue work as they have.
The LEAP API is something that can be used with Caséta and RA2 Select and is necessary for HW QSX
LEAP is not just cloud integration, it can be local or cloud; common industry alliances in this market are all going local (C4, Crestron, etc)
Lutron is working with a wide variety of 3rd party companies for support of QSX LEAP integration. Most of the big name companies already have integration or have QSX integration coming in the very near future.
If there is a company or product that people would like to see us integrate with, they can email workswith@lutron.com and it will get evaluated by the business
We also wanted to add a few other additional reasons why LEAP is being used over Telnet. The first thing to emphasize is security with the TLS connection. Another benefit is that LEAP makes integration easier since most of the integrations auto extract the Lutron system config for you (no longer have to mess around with integration reports). One of the rare exceptions to this is Crestron SIMP, but companies like josh.ai and C4 pull in the config for the integrator to make it easy. This could be done in the past with Telnet and XML but LEAP config can be pulled dynamically vs an XML file that only gets compiled at transfer.
What I want to mine from this is exactly what it is that people are trying to control that they cannot and what is causing the grief on the forum. It is not clear to me in reading the thread if it is heartburn caused by Savant or if they really did make their own integration? In talking with many dealers over the years, I would be surprised by how many really made their own large scale drivers that are outside of the major manufacturers that already make drivers for the industry.
I don't have a hard time thinking that Lutron would initially NOT support it on the Ra3 Processor. However, I think if that is the approach, it could either be re-introduced shortly after release, or LEAP will get opened up more easily for third party integration. There is probably a middle ground for them to open it without making it wide open to protect the exclusive higher end integration market for some time.
With that said, I read over on AVS (I think it was there) that someone has already had a look at the Ra3 Designer Software (Ra3 version of Essentials) and they see provisions for Telnet in the software. Im in the middle of the Ra3 course now, and once I get time to finish it I will take a look at the SW to see what I can find.
I'm convinced that this is not the case, that Lutron definitely intends to move away from Telnet. Nor do I expect them to open up LEAP beyond those selected integration partners they have allowed to use it (which does not include Hubitat). This puts them squarely in control of who integrates with their product, and Lutron is a company that likes being tightly in control of its approach to their markets, as they define them.
Of course, LEAP has been reverse-engineered and so not all is lost.
I’m curious, if you’re happy with what the caseta switches do, and they work well, what makes them overpriced? What price point would you consider to be acceptable?
