Not-so-occasional failures to control Serena shades

[cdmicacc]

This is via Home Assistant. I have an automation that raises and lowers some Lutron Serena honeycomb shades at various times during the day. However, it's frequently the case (at least once or twice a week) that when the automation runs, the shade doesn't lower. However, pylutron and thus Home Assistant think the shade lowered, and report it as lowered.

The debug logs from HA describe what it thinks is happening:

Logs from a time the shade failed to lower:

2023-08-28 19:35:21.110 DEBUG (MainThread) [pylutron_caseta.leap] sending b'{"CommuniqueType": "CreateRequest", "Header": {"ClientTag": "7e535cbb-1ab0-40c9-a181-679d891e62e4", "Url": "/zone/6/commandprocessor"}, "Body": {"Command": {"CommandType": "Lower"}}}'
2023-08-28 19:35:21.141 DEBUG (MainThread) [pylutron_caseta.leap] received: {'CommuniqueType': 'CreateResponse', 'Header': {'StatusCode': '204 NoContent', 'Url': '/zone/6/commandprocessor'}}
2023-08-28 19:35:21.142 DEBUG (MainThread) [homeassistant.components.lutron_caseta] {'device_id': '9', 'current_state': 0, 'fan_speed': None, 'tilt': None, 'zone': '6', 'name': 'Upstairs Hallway_West Window Shade', 'button_groups': None, 'occupancy_sensors': None, 'type': 'SerenaHoneycombShade', 'model': 'CSX-YJ-XX', 'serial': 1234, 'device_name': 'West Window Shade', 'area': '9'}

Logs from a time the same shade lowered successfully:

2023-08-28 20:46:22.545 DEBUG (MainThread) [pylutron_caseta.leap] sending b'{"CommuniqueType": "CreateRequest", "Header": {"ClientTag": "1e6668e0-8190-44ca-9c23-bf53834eb6a8", "Url": "/zone/6/commandprocessor"}, "Body": {"Command": {"CommandType": "Lower"}}}'
2023-08-28 20:46:22.580 DEBUG (MainThread) [pylutron_caseta.leap] received: {'CommuniqueType': 'CreateResponse', 'Header': {'StatusCode': '204 NoContent', 'Url': '/zone/6/commandprocessor'}}
2023-08-28 20:46:22.581 DEBUG (MainThread) [homeassistant.components.lutron_caseta] {'device_id': '9', 'current_state': 0, 'fan_speed': None, 'tilt': None, 'zone': '6', 'name': 'Upstairs Hallway_West Window Shade', 'button_groups': None, 'occupancy_sensors': None, 'type': 'SerenaHoneycombShade', 'model': 'CSX-YJ-XX', 'serial': 1234, 'device_name': 'West Window Shade', 'area': '9'}

Which are alas identical. I would appreciate any other suggestions for debugging this issue further.

[mdonoughe]

There should be another message before that about sending a request. If that's also identical, it's probably a problem with your RadioRA network. You can try raising and lowering via the mobile app to see if the same happens. If that's the case, I think installing another device to act as a repeater may fix it, but I'm not sure how that works for the different Lutron network technologies.

[FlyingDiver]

Lutron is not a mesh, so only adding actual repeaters will help with coverage.

[cdmicacc]

Oh oops, I somehow missed a newline in my backticks and it didn't show the request log lines. Fixed that above but yeah they are also the same.

I had wondered if it was a radio range or interference, thing. My home is not large and the shades are easily within 20 feet of the hub (but on different floors), so I wanted to check if there was any additional logging I could get from pylutron to help determine if the command was not being received by the shade. But I guess Lutron's hub just sort of swallows the commands and says "yeah that worked" even if the shade doesn't receive its transmissions 😞

Ah well, thanks for the suggestions. I may try moving the hub around the house to see if that helps.