Slowness of Pico Remote controlling a Caseta Light vs a Hue Light

Third party integrations
#1

Hi all, I’ve been playing with Pico remotes to do a variety of things, and it has been great, but I noticed a curiousity.

If I configure a Pico remote to toggle a Hue Light on / off it works essentially instantaneously. However, if I configure a Pico remote to toggle a Caseta light there is a very noticeable delay. Both are being processed through HA and talking to a local hub, so curious if this is an issue with the Caseta hub processing the command via telnet slower or if the Caseta HA implementation is doing something more interesting.

I know I can use the Caseta app to directly control the lights but I would like to customize some buttons but not all, and HA and Caseta will interfere with each other on button presses.

Also, other items I control using Pico buttons include Sonos (via HA) and they are also very quick.

1 Like
#2

@Talvish, I have exactly the same issue. I have a few theories as to the root of the problem. Just haven’t had time to test them all out and wanted to post this incase anyone else see it and can help.

My end goal is to use 5 button Pico remotes as scene controllers. Buttons are used to activate scenes (from Home Assistant) or a series of light on/off settings based on an automation that watches for the button press. Everything works but the delay controlling other Caseta Lights is very annoying.

I am currently using both the Home Assistant Core Lutron Caséta integration and the lutron-caseta-pro custom component. Prior to some recent versions of Home Assistant the custom component was the only way to use Pico remotes. I have tested remotes using both the core integration and the pro custom component and the result is the same.

The biggest hint is when using the Pico to trigger a scene. Non-Lutron devices respond instantly but Lutron switches don’t respond until after the light on the Pico stops blinking. I can see the Lutron Switch responding within Home Assistant instantly but the light doesn’t turn on until the Pico stops blinking. Controlling the same light directly from Home Assistant works as expected and turns the light on instantly.

Now onto my theories

  1. When the Pico is broadcasting it blocks the lutron hub from controlling other devices. I see home assistant switching the Lutron light on instantly but the light doesn’t turn on until the Pico remote stops blinking.
  2. Something about having telnet on the Caseta Pro Hub is creating the delay. The telnet session won’t process the request to turn on a light until the receiving signal from the Pico completes. This can be tested by disabling telnet and switching all my automations over to the Home Assistant Core Pico trigger.

My belief from reading about Lutron Clear Connect doesn’t show this problem when using a Pico to control a Caseta Light is that the Pico sends signals directly to the Lights and doesn’t have to go thru the hub.

Just trying to add some additional information as this was the only topic that seemed to describe the same problem I am trying to solve.

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#3

The theories are feasible. The Pico remote is sending a signal to the hub, hub is notifying HA and HA is calling back to the hub. Given the hub is in the path twice, perhaps there is some limited synchronous operations in there that give that choppy/slow feeling.

#4

Thanks for these details.

I’m encountering a somewhat similar issue. I’m using a PJ2-4B-GWH-L31 four button scene controller to execute scenes or on/off commands from Home Assistant.

I have two of the buttons set to turn on and off all the lights for a floor respectively. The lights utilizing Zigbee bulbs turn on and off instantly and in unison at a button press. The Caseta lights also always turn on and off in unison but are a clear 1-1.5 seconds behind all the other lights.

#5

Any update with this. I am having the same issue…

#6

Unfortunately not, though I haven’t spent any more time investigating to validate the theories.

#7

I contacted Lutron support to get a concrete answer to this issue:

From previous customer’s request and testing, we have identified that a 2 second delay it is as designed with HA.

Explanation is based around the fact that a button press on a Pico remote transmits the same RF message multiple times to ensure the end-device hears it – this takes about 1.5 seconds repeating this message. That traffic will go over to the Caseta bridge which in turn will pass it along to HA. As HA comes back to the bridge, the Caseta bridge knows that it has an integration command to send out but the bridge waits for the Pico remote to stop transmitting that initial RF message (of 1.5 seconds) to send over the integration command from HA. This results in about a 2 seconds delay with this setup.

It seems that this is the way the Caseta system works with the Pico remotes and the bridge will wait to send the commands to another Caseta device until the Pico remote is done transmitting.

Hope this prevents someone pulling their hair out chasing this issue.

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#8

This makes sense. And thanks for checking with Lutron.

#9

Thank you so much for sharing. This has been driving me crazy.

#10

Caseta supports using multiple hubs I wonder if assigning Picos to one hub and devices to another hub would solve this issue?

#11

I just tried this out. It doesn’t seem to make a difference if you split pico transmitters and dimmers/switchers onto a separate hub. The Lutron bridge/hub seems to be agnostic to all Lutron RF in the vicinity and will not process integration commands while it can ‘hear’ any nearby pico communicating. This is absurd IMO.

Here was my setup
Bridge 1: All lighting devices (switches, dimmers, etc)
Bridge 2: A single pico (which is NOT paired to the other bridge)

When pressing a button on the pico paired with bridge 2 Home Assistant registers the press immediately, however Bridge 1 will not process any integration commands from Home Assistant while the pico on Bridge 2 is transmitting. Similarly, the Lutron app does not seem to have special priority either and is not be able to control lights either while the pico is transmitting.

I did seem to be able to trick the bridge into executing a command immediately the following:

  1. press the pico
  2. waiting for it to finish transmitting
  3. press it again

The 2nd press when timed correctly would be executed immediately, which means I know this is at least possible and not a nebulous network lag issue–especially when you factor in that HASS is receiving the command on one hub and transmitting commands to devices on another. Honestly feels somewhat like a bug, not a feature when the ‘offending’ device is separated onto another hub.

#12

I’ve been chasing this issue for over a year but with Caseta motion sensors instead of Picos. Did you find a way around this? It drives me nuts that my Caseta sensors take about 2 seconds to turn on lights while my Hue motion sensors, whether they are controlling Hue bulbs or Caseta dimmers, are instant.