So people can say they have instant status even if they are not using the Lutron patent. And it’s not written into the patent itself. It’s important to note that a lot of people, including me, were confused because the term “instant status” is not under trademark.
So all of the manufacturers are waiting for either Lutron to make a statement or someone else to test the waters. And nobody wants to test it because Lutron, the patent holder, justifiably sued everybody there was the first time around (including Control4) and won every time. One expired this year, but the other still has awhile to run. The issue is that there are actually two separate patents that may cover this feature. I wonder whether the cheaper version sold at Home Depot, that does not have instant update, will now get it via some config option.
Over the past couple years the prices have dropped significantly and I now suspect it is due to the patent expiring and therefore the feature no longer really representing a major differentiating benefit (yes of course, also the natural market tendency of price going down over time as product gains volume, etc). In my case, I exclusively installed Leviton Vizia RF+ switches because of this feature.
#Waves central update notification how to#
I believe when I asked about it to one device vendor, they said that the feature was off by default (likely to avoid the royalty fee) but could be enabled via software configuration so if that is the case, it might not take that long for manufacturers to add it to their devices as they might just have to tell you how to enable it. This is great news! I hope the feature spreads to all applicable devices.
The only thing I understand that could make the date later than would be an extension due to a delay by the USPTO and I can’t find anything showing such an extension." I found this on another forum: "…Lutron patent 5,905,442 titled “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONTROLLING AND DETERMINING THE STATUS OF ELECTRICAL DEVICES FROM REMOTE LOCATIONS” has expired.