Has anyone used this setup? I understand that lutron cannot communicate with z wave directly. I know that I need an interim controller such as the radio ra or homeworks. What all protocols can the vera use? RS-232, 485, ethernet? Thanks, for any help.
If you can trigger your blinds with a phantom button on the essentials software, it should be pretty straightforward to use the lutron plugin for vera and do it. I’ve just started to look into this, but haven’t heard back from tech support on whether you can do this yet.
My Lutron blinds work with the RA2 plugin.
Great to hear! I’m really happy we went the route of putting in lutron. Working very well overall and the integration with vera is quite good.
can you elaborate a little more on this.
- Does the lutron venetian blind have the ra2 built in to their blinds?
- Do you have to buy a ra2 system and have it some where in the house and have vera plugin send commands to it, which will then send to the blinds?
- What is the cost on the blind and ra2 system?
[quote=“2exclusive, post:5, topic:183342”]can you elaborate a little more on this.
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Does the lutron venetian blind have the ra2 built in to their blinds?
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Do you have to buy a ra2 system and have it some where in the house and have vera plugin send commands to it, which will then send to the blinds?
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What is the cost on the blind and ra2 system?[/quote]
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I believe Radio RA2 is added on to a QS motor with a radio dongle, so it is essentially built-in to a finished product. It is built-in to their Serena line of cellular shades I believe too.
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Yes you’ll need something to communicate between the shade motors and Vera, there is no way to communicate directly as Lutron uses wither their proprietary RA2 Radio signal or their proprietary RS485 wired communication. The only tubular motors for roller shades with Z-Wave embedded are available from zwavemotors.com.
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Price depends on the motors used, size/type of shades, and dealer markup. Lutron is typically the most expensive option in motorized shades and while it is a quiet motor, the motors are more delicate and may not last as long as traditional AC powered tubular motors.
Thanks for the feedback, I’m actually looking for an easier solution than this. Looking for a zwave implementation to controll 2" wood blinds for opening/closing blinds and lifting. If anyone knows that would be helpful
Somfy offers two small RTS motors for either tilt-only (used with Venetian blinds) or lift only (used with cellular shades). They also have a tilt and lift option that uses a tubular motor called the CTS system (cord take-up system). This could be better for you since it uses a tubular motor and you could then use a dumb motor 40mm motor and an add-on z-wave motor controller but the controller would need to support tilting of the blinds. The ABMHZ has tilt functionality, the AC1-ZW or a Fibaro controller might support tilting too:
It will probably take a specialty shop unless you can find a vendor that will get you every little piece of the CTS system to attempt it yourself. Typically they use a new headrail with the CTS system in it and add your blinds to it.
That sounds like a lot of work lol, thought it was as simple as a tilt and lift unit and fibaro controller
Hello guys,
I was on the phone today with Lutron and they do offer blinds which can raise/lower and tilt motorized. They have 2 solutions in this area and I will discuss with a reseller next Monday the details around this.
Reading the thread above it looks like that this plugin will work with the Lutron proprietary system Lutron RadioRA2 Gateway using Telnet.
My questions here would be:
- What device from Lutron to I need to purchase to control the shades which can receive Telnet calls from Vera?
- Does anybody have this plugin running and working with what kind of shades?
Thanks in advance.
[quote=“Pseudomizer, post:10, topic:183342”]Hello guys,
I was on the phone today with Lutron and they do offer blinds which can raise/lower and tilt motorized. They have 2 solutions in this area and I will discuss with a reseller next Monday the details around this.
Reading the thread above it looks like that this plugin will work with the Lutron proprietary system Lutron RadioRA2 Gateway using Telnet.
My questions here would be:
- What device from Lutron to I need to purchase to control the shades which can receive Telnet calls from Vera?
- Does anybody have this plugin running and working with what kind of shades?
Thanks in advance.[/quote]
The plugin is for the Lutron Radio RA2 system. When you get the system it comes with a “repeater” device that plugs into your Ethernet home network and sends the radio signals t the blinds.
So basically, you will be buying a Radio RA2 system, and getting blinds that work with RA2 if you go this route.
I went the poor mans route; I just have the honeycomb cellular shades (6 of them). But then I have a bunch of lights controlled by RA2.