Lutron Caseta with Logitech Harmony Elite? (1 Viewer)

Can anyone tell me whether the Lutron Caseta smarthub is required in order to be able to use the Logitech Harmony Elite remote to control the Lutron Caseta wireless light switch/dimmer?

Yes, you need the Caseta SmartBridge. There are two types, the normal one and the Pro, and either will work.


However, at this point support for the Lutron Caseta is very limited. While reviews sing the praises of the Harmony Elite as some sort of great home control device, it's pretty weak with the Caseta line (and I can't see why it would be better with any other lights, to be honest).


For example:


- When you turn a light on or off with the Elite, it jumps right to that level, instead of smoothly adjusting like with would via the switch or a Pico remote

- While you can group multiple switches together, they aren't adjusted at the same time like they would be with a Pico remote. So, adjust the group up and Light 1 goes up a bit, then 2, then 3. Move them up and down a bit and somehow they get out of sync, with some brighter and some darker -- to get them aligned, you have to select each one individually and manually adjust

- There's no way to set a favorite light level when you turn them on. The remote appears to bring them to the last level they were at when they're on, but I haven't been able to completely figure this one out yet -- in some cases, lights turn on very dim, even though no one ever set them to that level

- While the SmartBridge allows "scenes" that set light levels across multiple lights, these aren't recognized by the Elite

- The SmartBridge adds Pico remotes as devices, but these, too, aren't accessible from the Elite

- Actions for the lights are only assignable to the dedicated home control buttons, and can't be used in any activities or macros/sequences

- The short press / long press actions for the light buttons can't be changed. Short turns on the light, long turns it off. That's it.

- The up/down rocker doesn't always appear to work. When it does, it doesn't work smoothly.


In other words, control of Lutron Caseta lights is more of a demo feature than anything else. If you have a single switch and really just want to turn it on/off from the remote, it's workable. If you want to hit a button and turn the lights on to a certain level, then hit another button and have it dim to a lower level for movies, you're out of luck.


And if, like me, you have nearly a dozen Caseta dimmers that work beautifully with the Lutron Pico remotes, you might just find yourself returning your new Harmony Elite, as I am (sadly) seriously considering doing now.

Deco - Thanks for the detailed and helpful response. I have not yet set up my dimmers, but this may cause me to rerthink my approach. My lights are Nicor LED lights, but are not smart lights, so I had hoped to be able to use the Harmony Elite remote to control the Caseta dimmer/switch to dim lights. Sounds like I may just have to settle for using the Pico remote.

wings said:

Deco - Thanks for the detailed and helpful response. I have not yet set up my dimmers, but this may cause me to rerthink my approach. My lights are Nicor LED lights, but are not smart lights, so I had hoped to be able to use the Harmony Elite remote to control the Caseta dimmer/switch to dim lights. Sounds like I may just have to settle for using the Pico remote.

Click to expand...

It definitely "works", it's just not as nice to use as it could be. After more time using it, I think I'm going to stick with it and hope that Logitech supports scenes and simultaneous dimmer operation in a future release (they've done the former for Philips bulbs recently). Also, the up/down rocker appears to be working better now (really not sure why).


If you already have the Elite, getting the SmartBridge will let you try it out and see how it goes. You could always get the bridge and return if you don't like it.


Alternatively, if you bought the dimmers and did not yet install, you could return them and instead get the starter kit, which includes two dimmers, the bridge, two Pico remotes, and two remote pedestals. In many places, this is only a bit more than the price of the two dimmers alone. (I have also heard about a single-dimmer start kit, but haven't seen it yet.)


For me, I knew I'd want the bridge regardless. Even without the Elite integration, it means I can set schedules for lights, which is valuable to me when I'm out of town and want it to look like someone's home. I also plan to switch my outside lights over to Caseta (likely just the new on/off switches), so I can move away from my current cumbersome timers to the SmartBridge scheduling, which allows sunrise/sunset tracking.

Good news: After a year, Logitech has update the firmware on the Elite to behave better in this area.

As per the release notes, the Nov 21 update included a fix called "Fix for Harmony Elite center home control button issue for thermostats and light bulbs". It appears that this allows my Elite to adjust grouped Lutron Caseta lights in near-perfect unison, and they never seem to get out of sync any longer.

For it to be great news, I'd still want to see:

- Dimming action as smooth as the Lutron Pico
- Scene assignment to a hard/soft button (including unused home control buttons)
- The ability to add a scene to an activity

The last two you can do/simulate on an Android/iOS device using IFTTT, but they're really needed on the remote itself.

...and it's broken again.

In the Oct 31 update (v4.14.110), behavior with Lutron light groups has reverted back to its original behavior. I've submitted to the Logitech forums, so hopefully this will get resolved (again).

There are other bugs that have reappeared with the latest Harmony updates. With multiple issues like this, it seems likely there is weak configuration management (codebase management). While this is bad, it's more easily fixed than weak development. That is, preventing old bugs from being reintroduced is simpler than solving the problem of always introducing new ones.

The Harmony Elite is still the most polished solution do-it-yourself solution available. Progress is pretty slow, though -- not just with this bug coming back, but the wishlist above isn't there yet, either (another year on). And this is for integration with Lutron, inventor of the dimmer, and a company focused on moving into the very mid-market that the Elite is aimed at.