OK, I have been fiddling with things for a bit now and have 3 lutron dimmers set up with their own RL instance. Everything seems to work, but then randomly, one of my dimmers will miss an event. In this example, this morning my exterior overhead pendant should turn off at sunrise. It did just fine yesterday, but today it is still on after the event time has passed. Here is my log indicating the event, but no response from the lutron dimmer.
This is a screenshot of my RL instance for that dimmer, showing it should be turned off right now
Just to make sure, I meant the Lutron Smart Bridge Pro 2, not the Hubitat hub.
Maybe try without the transition time.
I don't really understand how the logs are being generated. You have 2 Telnet events to the Lutron bridge turning the light off in less than a second. There's no 10 seconds of transition. Lutron dimmers should not report as off until the level gets to 0. @bravenel should be able to figure the issue out.
No problem at all, and thanks for the input. Yes, the Lutron Bridge Pro 2 is right next to the hubitat right below these dimmers (one floor down).
I have 2 dimmers right next to each other, both are in the exterior lights room, but one controls the overhead pendant and the other is multiple exterior lights. In this case, this morning, the one dimmer that controls the multiple exterior lights functioned properly at the shutoff for sunrise time, but the dimmer next to it that operated the overhead pendant did not. Both have identical rules for the shutoff, so I am not sure why one worked and the other did not (both switches are also identical lutron dimmers). I will definitely try it without the transition time, as I am really scratching my head on what to do next.
Also, I should add, the pendant light that did not turn off this morning, did turn off yesterday morning at the correct time in response to the RL routine, very confused on what is happening.
Thanks again.
In your experience do you think because I had an event on both of those switches at the exact same time that it could have interfered with one of the switches executing? I only ask because the exact same thing happened this evening, except it was the other switch next to the one which skipped the event this morning. So my Exterior Lighting and Pendant both should be sent jobs at 9pm, this evening the pendant did what it was supposed to do, but my exteriors stayed on.. Here is the log.
OK, so this morning, my kitchen pendants did not turn off which is a switch on the other side of the house. So all 3 of my lutron dimmers are randomly not responding to some events. Can someone help with this, being new to hubitat this is perplexing and frustrating as I have tried so many different things and none seem to resolve this.
One thing I have not tried yet is to not use RL and maybe attempt something with another app like RM? Would this be worth trying?
Please share more details regarding your entire Lutron lighting system configuration. It is hard to help diagnose and troubleshoot an intermittent issue without more data.
How many Lutron Dimmers, Switches, Fan Controllers, and Pico remotes do you have paired with your Lutron SmartBridge Pro2?
How far are these devices from the SmartBridge Pro2?
Do you have either of the two Lutron devices that can act as repeaters in your network? A Lutron Caseta network can have up to two devices acting as repeaters to help with range issues. Lutron sells a dedicated repeater device. Also, the first Caseta Plug-In Dimmer module also acts as a repeater. One, and only one, of each of these devices can be added to your Lutron Clear Connect RF network to improve range, for a grand total of two repeaters.
If you take Hubitat out of the equation for the time being, and only use the Lutron Caseta app on your mobile phone, can you reliably turn on and off each of the Lutron devices? We're trying to determine if the issue is with the automations on Hubitat, or if there is a Lutron stability issue.
On the Hubitat side of things, if you bring up each of the Lutron devices in their Device Details page on the hub, you will be able to manually control each device. If you try turning these devices on and off using their Device Details Hubitat page, how do they behave? If they behave well, then the issue may be with the automations on Hubitat. If they do not perform well, then perhaps the communications between your Hubitat hub and Caseta SmartBridge Pro is an issue?
Hopefully, by methodically going through the above steps, ans sharing more information about your Lutron network, as well as your home LAN/WiFi network, the root cause can be determined and resolved.
I have about 70 Lutron Caseta devices which have been working flawlessly for years integrated with my Hubitat hub. They are 100% reliable and blazing fast. This is what most Hubitat users also share as their experience. Thus, your experience is definitely not typical.
Thank you very much for this detailed reply. Let me answer some of these questions:
Right now I am only running 3 of the Lutron Casetta Smart Dimmers ( PD-6WCL-WH-3-A).
Two of these dimmers are directly above the Hubitat and Lutron Smart Pro2 on the next floor, so probably about 10 ft and through one floor. The third dimmer is also on the top floor but about 30ft over from those other 2 dimmers mentioned above on another wall.
I do not, they are just setup as dimmers right now.
I did go to the devices page as you suggested and ran some off/on commands to each device. They responded consistently and fast each time for all switches. I did this about 20 times for each device.
I am now going to do as you suggested and have eliminated Hubitat from the equation and am running all automations on the Lutron app. I will let this go for a good 24-48 hours and see if anything misses during that time.
Home network setup is a Pfsense router connected to a managed switch that is running multiple VLANs. I have all IoT devices including Hubitat and the Lutron smart bridge pro2 all on the same network (subnet). Wifi is supplied by a Ruckus r710 AP.
I agree that my issue seems to be rare, as I have dug through the forums looking for something similar and have come up dry. I feel I am either missing something right in front of my nose or perhaps some technical malfunction is the issue.
I will report back on the Lutron hub automations and hope to figure something out on this, thanks again for your suggestions!
FYI - Unlike z-wave and zigbee devices, Lutron's wireless protocol (Clearconnect) doesn't use in-wall dimmers/switches as repeaters to reach other dimmers/switches. So the third dimmer doesn't communicate to the Lutron Bridge via either of the two dimmers that are 10 ft away from the hub.
Going through multiple walls may limit the ease with which the Lutron Bridge communicates with the third dimmer. Also, out of curiosity - what are your floors and walls made of?
I see you have a somewhat complex network configuration, as compared to most Home users. As such, I wonder if you chose to configure your Hubitat hub with a static IP address, on the hub itself? If so, there are many reports of users having network connectivity issues when doing so. The current best practice is to configure the hub for DHCP. Within your DHCP server, please reserve an IP address for your hub (and your Lutron SmartBridge Pro for that matter!)
I am not saying that this will resolve your issue, but it definitely won’t hurt.
If you’d like to explore Lutron’s methods for improving Clear Connect RF range, please see the following
Thanks for the info on the clearconnect vs zwave/zigbee, I did not know they did not mesh like those other protocols. It is good to know because if I add more dimmers or switches I will most likely need to utilize a repeater of some sort.
The floor that the hubs need to communicate through is just a standard plywood subfloor with some engineered hardwood on top of that. There are no walls between those 3 switches as they are in one big room.
Those are very good suggestions to check and I did confirm that the best practice settings were what I have been using. Hubitat was setup for DHCP and a static IP address was assigned by the router's DHCP server. Also, the Lutron hub is in DHCP mode with a static IP assigned by the router DHCP server as well.
I am hoping it is not a range issue at least with the two dimmers that are just 10ft from those hubs. The consistency reported with the device check seems to indicate they were good at least at that moment. Hoping running things through the Lutron app for a day or so will reveal something. I will report back on any findings.
Also, thank you for the link to the RF range extension. I will definitely investigate that route if the lutron app shows the same inconsistencies.
I did a quick scan of devices registered at that freq on fccid.io and didn't see anything I recognized so I think I am not having a frequency conflict. But I can't be certain. It is a possibility for sure though given the indications I am dealing with.
Ok, so I have been running my automations under the Lutron app for about 24 hours now and have gone through several time period changes with all 3 dimmers. They have all worked without issue. So I am thinking it is an issue with my Hubitat configuration. I will keep things running under the Lutron hub for another few time period cycles just to be sure but I want to start working on identifying what I may be doing wrong in the meantime. Being new to Hubitat, it is highly likely it is an issue I am creating.
Let me explain how my lighting is set up, so maybe it will reveal my issue. Ok so I have a "Means to Activate" set for Sunset on a particular switch, and also a "Time Period" with Sunset with "Act" box checked, and set level "30". Would having the "Means to Activate" and "Time Period" both triggering events at the exact same time be causing my issue? In that same regard, I have the same dimmer with a "Means to Turn Off" set for Sunrise while also having a "Time Period" with Sunrise as my time, and "off" selected. Is this an incorrect way of doing things?
Two things, please…. First, please explain, as simply as possible, exactly what you’re trying to accomplish. Second, please share a screenshot of your Hubitat automation so the community can assist in debugging it (or suggesting alternate, simpler Hubitat Apps to achieve your goals!)
Ok, since all of my 3 dimmers are doing similar jobs, but at different times, and all have shown the same inconsistencies, I will focus on just one dimmer in this explanation for the sake of reducing confusion.
I have a dimmer that is connected to an outside porch overhead pendant. I would like this pendant to turn on 60 minutes before sunset at a level of 17. I would then like it to reduce its level to 1 at 9:00pm. Lastly, I would like it to turnoff at sunrise. I have setup Hubitat like this:
Your requirements definitely appear to be reasonable enough. Unfortunately, I am not familiar with the recently added Room Lighting application. All of my automations are based on some of the older apps from the early days of Hubitat.
I am tagging @bravenel, the author of Room Lighting, in the hope that can can take a quick look at your post above. Bruce is also a Lutron user, so he really has the all of the skills to assist with this particular set of automations.
Have you considered re-doing this in Basic Rules? I find it easier to configure than Room Lighting. Especially since you are primarily making use of time of day, without input from any sensors.
