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Lutron Smart Bridge
The Lutron Smart Bridge and Smart Bridge Pro are connected devices from Lutron for controlling the Lutron Caseta lighting system.
Datasheet (version 369816e 1 03.09.16, retrieved 2017-08-22): http://www.lutron.com/TechnicalDocumentLibrary/369816a_Smart_Bridge_Pro_Spec.pdf
Lutron Caseta is a described by Lutron as a single-room solution for lighting and automation. It supports dimmers, switches, plug-in dimmers, handheld Pico remotes and motorized shades (see the product listing on their website for details). Lutron provides free iOS and Android mobile applications to setup and control the Smart Bridge. An iOS or Android device is required to do intial setup and to integrate with various third-party services.
Individual dimmers and switches can also be paired directly with the Pico remotes if no Smart Bridge is being used.
Third-party integrations available for both Smart Bridge and Smart Bridge Pro (excluding professional third-party integrations) include:
- Sonos audio system
- Nest thermostat, camera and Nest Protect
- Lutron WiFi thermostat (L-HWLV2-WIFI)
- Honeywell WiFi thermostat (Lyric and T-series)
- Ecobee thermostat
- Apple HomeKit
- Amazon Alexa
- Google Assistant and Google Home
In addition, the following systems have officially supported integrations to control Lutron devices from their own app, hub or remote control:
- Samsung SmartThings
- IFTTT
- Logitech Harmony
- XFINITY Home
- AT&T Digital Life
- Wink Hub
- Staples Connect Hub
Most of the above integrations are cloud-to-cloud integrations that require an Internet connection for the Smart Bridge.
The Lutron lights and Pico remotes use a proprietary Clear Connect protocol from Lutron. The Wink and Staples Connect Hub also support Clear Connect and therefore Pico remotes and Caseta dimmers and switches can be paired with Wink or Staples Connect Hub instead of the Smart Bridge. Devices cannot be paired to more than one Clear Connect hub at the same time.
Clear Connect uses a 431 to 437 MHz MHz radio frequency, the same frequency band used for wireless key fobs for cars and garage door openers. Unlike 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz used by WiFi, the 430 MHz spectrum does not permit continuous transmission so the frequency remains largely clear from interference. The low frequency also helps with transmission through walls or other obstacles.
As described in the white paper, Clear Connect uses a hub and spoke model for radio transmissions such that all devices receive the same transmission sent by one central hub rather than a peer-to-peer or mesh network. This helps reduce latency issues with lighting that can cause lights to come on at different latencies after a button press if a mesh network (such as ZigBee or Z-Wave) is being used. A drawback is that the hub can only transmit a certain fixed range (typically 30 ft for Clear Connect) and wired repeaters are required for larger systems.
Original models released in 2014 were not HomeKit-compatible:
- Smart Bridge (L-BDG-WH)
- Smart Bridge PRO (L-BDGPRO-WH)
Current models (as of 2017) have version 2 in the model number and support Apple HomeKit:
- Smart Bridge (L-BDG2-WH)
- Smart Bridge PRO (L-BDGPRO2-WH)
'WH' in Lutron part numbers means white for the color.
There appears to be no externally visible differences between first and second versions of the devices apart from packaging that displays the HomeKit branding. Internally, it is likely the version 2 devices have additional hardware and/or software to support HomeKit requirements as part of the mFi program required by Apple for Homekit certification.
The Smart Bridge PRO supports integration with third-party professional home automation and alarm systems such as from Savant, RTI, Control4, Crestron and alarm.com (see Pro Products for the list). From examination of the device, the PRO model supports a Telnet interface very similar to Lutron's other product lines (RadioRA 2, Homeworks QS) that is used for professional integrations. The Telnet interface supports a subset of the openly available Lutron Integration Protocol.
The Smart Bridge PRO also supports additional shade types for Sivoia QS Wireless shades (excluding venetian or horizontal blinds that require tilt control).
The Telnet interface and other features are intended for third-party integrators and are not officially supported by Lutron. The Smart Bridge PRO is also only sold by Lutron dealers and electical supply distributors and not in retail stores. However, various e-commerce sites have it available for online purchase making it relatively easy to obtain.
The Smart Bridge and Smart Bridge Pro are small white boxes measuring 2.75" (69.9mm) wide x 2.75" (69.9mm) long x 1.19" (30.23mm) in height. Ports include 1 x 100 Mbps wired Ethernet, 1 microUSB power jack (5 V, 300 mA), 1 small black add button. A white LED ring circles the box and remains on while in operation.
Based on a teardown by Mark Hughes, the following hardware components are inside:
- ST STM32L100RBT6 32-bit Microcontroller (ARM Cortex-M3, 256 KB flash) Website
- Helical wire antenna
- Texas Instruments CC110L wireless RF transceiver Website
- Microchip KSZ8081RMACA Ethernet transceiver Website
- Texas Instruments AM3352BZCE30 32-bit microprocessor (ARM Cortex A-8) Website
- Kynix 93C46WP serial EEPROM
- Texas Instruments TPS650250 power management IC
- Micron Technologies SDRAM
- Micron Technologies MT29F2G08ABBEAH4-IT:E* NAND flash memory
The firmware for this device runs a Linux distribution:
- Kernel: 3.12.003
- Architecture: armv71
As listed in the Open Source Legal Agreement, the following technologies are also used (version numbers are likely out of date):
- U-Boot 2013.07
- GCC 4.7.3
- Binutils 2.23.2
- glibc 2.17
- Debugger- gdb 7.6
- mtd-utils 1.5.0
- libjson 1.0
- busybox 1.20.2.ts1
- tzdata 2012h
- util-linux 2.21.2
- zlib 1.2.7
- gdbm 1.1
- sqlite3 3.7.17
- libassuan 2.0.3
- libgpg-error 1.1
- at 3.1.13
- opkg 0.1.8
- dbus 1.6.8
- monit 5.5
- vixie-cron 4.3-ts1
- expat 2.1.0
- pcre 8.31
- readline 6.2
- watchdog 5.12
- glib2 2.34.3
- gpgme 1.3.1
- libdaemon 0.14
- pth 2.0.7
- ntp 4.2.6p5
- openssh 6.4p1
- avahi 0.6.31
- curl 7.30.0
- iana-etc 2.3
- ifplugd 0.28
- xinetd 2.3.14
- openssl 1.0.1g
- ncurses 5.9
- flex 2.5.37
- libffi 3.0.11
- fakeroot 1.14.4
- intltool 0.41.1
- pkgconfig 0.23
- ccache 3.1.9
- dtc 1.3.0
- mkimage 2013.07
- GO Language 1.2
- go-sqlite3 Library
- websocket Library
- mqtt Library
- UniUri
The source code that is required to be made available to comply with licenses some for the above software packages is not readily visible on the Lutron website.
Both Smart Bridge and Smart Bridge PRO support an SSH-based interface on port 22 known within the software as the LEAP interface (possibly Lutron External Access Protocol?). A private SSH key is known for the 'leap' user which provides (completely unofficial and unsupported) access to this interface. There is no shell login for the interface and after authentication commands can be written and responses or events are seen on the interface, but there is no shell access to the operating system.
In addition Smart Bridge PRO supports a Telnet interface on port 23, known in the software as the LIP Server (presumably for Lutron Integration Protocol). The LIP server requires a username and password. The username 'lutron', password 'integration' is a known account. Telnet access only responds to Lutron Integration Protocol commands and displays the responses or monitored events and there is no shell access to the operating system.