Lutron gear will soon work with SmartThings and the Nest Cam
The veteran smart lighting maker plans to sync up with Samsung's connected home platform in 2017. You'll also be able to set your lights to come on whenever the Nest Cam detects motion.
- 10 years product testing experience with the CNET Home team
Lutron is a well-established and well-connected smart home manufacturer, with Caseta smart switches that work with both Apple HomeKit and Amazon's Alexa and luxurious motorized shades that are among the fanciest gear you'll find in the entire CNET Smart Home. Now, at CES 2017, it's announcing a couple of new feathers for its cap: compatibility with Samsung's SmartThings connected home platform, and an integration with Nest that'll let you set your lights to turn on automatically whenever the Nest Cam detects motion.
On the SmartThings front, you'll be able to control your Lutron switches and shades alongside other compatible gadgets in the SmartThings app. That'll let you use things like SmartThings-compatible motion detectors to trigger your Lutron gear.
Lutron devices will work with SmartThings in 2017 -- but you'll still need the Lutron Bridge plugged into your router.
You won't, however, be able to use the SmartThings Hub to replace your Lutron Bridge the way you can with the Wink Hub. SmartThings doesn't include native support for the proprietary Clear Connect signal that Lutron devices use to transmit data, so you'll still need that Lutron Bridge plugged into your router to act as translator.
On the Nest front, Lutron is building upon its existing integration with the Nest Learning Thermostat and the Nest Protesct smoke detector and adding in Nest Cam support. It's a simple synergy between the two, letting you program your lights to come on whenever the Nest Cam detects unexpected motion. The most obvious use case is to sync your lights up with a Nest Cam or a Nest Cam Outdoor that's keeping watch over your porch -- if someone ever creeps up to the door in the middle of the night, the lights would come on, potentially scaring them off.
The new tricks will join the other integrations in Lutron's toolkit, which already includes support for Amazon's Alexa as well as for Apple HomeKit, the set of smart home protocols built into the software in iPhones and iPads that lets users control their gadgets with Siri commands. That gives Lutron two high-profile means of voice control.
A third potential avenue for voice-activated lighting could be Google Home, the tech titan's answer to the smash hit Amazon Echo. I asked Neil Orchowski, Lutron's Product Development Manager, Strategic Alliances about the possibility of such a strategic alliance with Google's smart speaker, but he wouldn't speak to any specific roadmap, saying only, "we see voice as something that will continue to grow." So, no trifecta just yet.
As for SmartThings and Nest Cam support, the new integrations are both expected to arrive early this year.