I did my whole house in Lutron’s smart switches (close to 50 of them), and I think it’s good? It’s been about 2 years now and I really haven’t had any issues.
The switches aren’t Wi-Fi connected, because Wi-Fi would be an awful choice for 50 devices that you only communicate with a few times a day. They use their own wireless frequency and communicate in a really simple/reliable way to the bridge, which is wired to my router and doesn’t need an internet connection to work.
There’s no always-running cloud service, the light switches work even when the internet is down (and I can still use the home app too in such an event, just no voice control.)
Siri is finicky sometimes, but I’d wager a 97% success rate in saying things like “set the scene Evening Downstairs” and “turn off all the lights except in the bedroom.”
My favorite aspect is that the pico switches can be programmed to switch whole rooms of lights on and off, which makes it so much nicer in the basement where I have 18 different lights to turn on and I can just hit one switch on my way downstairs and it’s fully illuminated (no voice command necessary) and I don’t have to visit 18 light switches to turn them off again.
Home automation tech must be invisible and fall back gracefully, and must always be interact-able in a “dumb” way, or else it’s just playing games IMO.
I worked at Lutron my first two years after getting my EE. I wasn't on the wireless products but we did do crazy amounts of fussing over fall back behaviors and corner cases. We very much developed the software with the attitude of hardware: we knew what we shipped had to work for years and field updates were unacceptable.
I've been gone from Coopersburg for 15 years but I still practice the engineering culture I learned there.
Fun fact: I don't know what they do today but when I was there it was a long standing tradition that engineers put in some time on the customer support phones. That way you get direct (and sometimes very unfiltered) feedback from users and their expectations on your product and understanding of the instructions you wrote. So if you call the 800 number it's not going to India and you might get to talk to one of the (lower level) engineers that made the product!
Oh hey, Lutron! I interviewed there coming out of college, some 10 years ago. I think I drove down from Rochester, iirc. Of all the places I interviewed at the time, it's one of the only ones where I remember a specific interviewing session because it was somewhat unique:
The interview sat across from me and role-played a customer calling to complain about a vague issue happening in their home. I then had to roleplay asking the customer and various internal teams (all played by the interviewer) questions, forming hypotheses, running imaginary tests (the interviewer would tell me the outcome), and so on. I started from "The lights in this room don't work right", then clarified and trouble-shot through to the underlying issue, and finally to a root cause.
At the time it seemed super weird, but looking back on it years later, it was a clear exercise in troubleshooting skill - something that remains invaluable in engineering. It's one of the only times before or since that I can recall being tested on that specifically, even though it comes up all the time in my day-to-day job.
From what you describe, this challenges sounds like that was emblematic of the culture there. :)
Back-in-the-day (2006-era), that was how Microsoft would interview people for their Premier Field Engineer (PFE) role within the Support division. For customers where telephone/remote support couldn't resolve the issue, PFE's would be sent on-site to troubleshoot. (As well as do advisory and training engagements).
Also - typically, no matter where the potential job would be physically located, there would be at least one interview where you had to get on a plane and travel to complete - it weeded-out anyone who wasn't willing to actually travel for a role that required 70%+ time on-the-road.
If you accepted the position, there was a multi-week bootcamp - that would also include a week of paired shadowing telephone support calls.
> long standing tradition that engineers put in some time on the customer support phones
Before this, the tradition at engineering companies was that the "kids fresh out of school" would start in Manufacturing or Service so they'd have some experience with the difference between design engineering and actually being able to build or repair the thing you designed.
For a company that sells a product, understanding customers is really important, so it makes sense to have new employees spend time in customer support. There is no faster way to understand what you should be building. The only problem I have with it is thinking of exposure to customers as a hazing ritual that ends after a certain point, after which you never have to deal with them for the rest of your career. This should probably be on a rotation!
Not only did I answer the phones but I haphazardly volunteered to help out for a shift at the local factory. I spent a shift Christmas Eve (with tinny music over the PA) crimping wires to a transformer. At the end of the shift they explained that they didn't need that work done but they didn't like they the large wire had to be crimped to a medium wire before being crimped to a small wire. This was a step that usually had to be done once per panel one or twice per day (large commercial orders) but they had me, guy who had been there for six months, crimp a couple hundred of them as a lesson to management. Well I learned that lesson and to this day I don't waste ANYONE'S time. No matter what.
I set up all my non-standard lighting fixtures with Lutron Caseta switches, and replaced all the standard bulbs with Philips Hue bulbs. They've both been working flawlessly, together, with my 3 HomePod Minis for about a year and a half now.
It really is a brand thing. Most are bad.
[edit] > My favorite aspect is that the pico switches can be programmed to switch whole rooms of lights on and off...
This is my only gripe with the Lutron hardware. The Picos can only be used to trigger Lutron devices. They don't integrate into HomeKit like the switches do.
This meant I had to go with a bunch of Hue Smart Buttons, which do, but have a tendency of falling out of their homes and onto the ground.
Was looking at the Hue compatible RunLessWire stuff though. [1]
Philips Hue lights are sadly not on the same seriousness level as the Lutron hardware.
After a time away, I tried to turn on lights with my phone -- only to be greeted by a message like "There is a mandatory update available for your bridge. You can use your system again after 10 minutes". I found not being able to turn on the lights for 10 minutes because they were installing unprompted updates completely unacceptable, so that was my last day as a Hue user. I now use a mix of Zigbee bulbs controlled with a (stable, offline) zigbee2mqtt gateway.
One of the challenges is this - on one hand, we have the "IoT is notoriously insecure and manufacturers have or should have liability" argument, which is valid, and when manufacturers do actually release security updates, that should be lauded.
And then on the other we have the usability pain like this. I'd rather pay a few dollars more for more storage or an A/B firmware system so the upgrade can run async and minimize interruption.
Mandatory software updates are not the problem. Having to restart devices to install any updates (plus the fact that it takes 10 minutes) is the problems. It's possible to engineer around that.
I have two hue bridges ( because I have over 60 lights) that have been working for a long time now and I have never seen this problem. It’s worked flawlessly.
I also have another zigbee dongle with zigbee2mqtt and zigbee2mqtt is what gives me problems particularly if the power goes out over the house.
I use a couple wall modules that don't plug into anything then setup a HomeKit trigger to bridge other systems. You can trigger the wall module from a Luton switch and that will trigger the HomeKit automation.
The hack is worth it for the reliability of Lutron. The Caseta system never fails for me.
> This is my only gripe with the Lutron hardware. The Picos can only be used to trigger Lutron devices. They don't integrate into HomeKit like the switches do.
They do if you use a “middleware” to tie together the systems like Home Assistant or HomeBridge. I raise and lower zwave blinds using a pico switch.
I just did a whole house with Philips Hue lights and the RunLessWire switches. Love the fact that the switches are piezo-powered. The downsides to them are the loud click they make and that you have to learn how to properly press them (with about a 200ms hold) in order to come close to 100% reliability.
They're actually not piezo-powered! That's an EnOcean switch module, it's generating the energy from a coiled wire. Clicking the switch loads up force in a spring mechanism and then releases it to move a magnet through the coil.
ArsTechnica has a look inside a similar module in the Hue Tap.
RunLessWire looks to be selling two variants of them, one with the same 2.4 GHz module as above for use with Hue, and another version for on/off circuit control, which would be 902 MHz EnOcean in the US.
> you have to learn how to properly press them (with about a 200ms hold)
My water filter infuriates me to no end with this. Maybe if the switch were polled every 50ms I wouldn't notice it, but 200ms is so long for my otherwise patient composure that I prefer to drink the water from the tap.
Folks are lazy and that's expedient. It's good (in the short term, at least) for the people who make the decisions and bad for their customers, who have little agency.
My experience with Lutron's smart switches and blinds has been great. For any new home construction, I would wholeheartedly recommend adding a lot more LED lights than any builder would normally put in, wiring in smart+motorized blinds, and using smart dimmer light switches. The way to avoid fussiness from smart home devices is to choose ones that are controllable in both the classic ways, like with a switch on the wall and/or remote control - and also through an app or by voice with your preferred device from Amazon, Apple, or Google.
With Lutron, beyond the things you mentioned, two more of my unexpectedly favorite features have been:
1) being able to add additional wall switches anywhere and program them to control any set of lights, without any extra electrical wiring (for 3-way or 4-way switches, or controlling multiple lighting circuits with one switch)
2) range-based programming (e.g. automatically turning on lights for rooms from the garage to kitchen when you're arriving home)
Other devices like smart locks, smart garage doors, water leak alarm sensors, and AV equipment have all been useful and generally worked well for me. Some of them have been slightly fussy, but not as a general rule and certainly not to an "unbearable" extent. Overall, they really do make things significantly better, at a surprisingly low cost compared to the rest of home construction.
Yep, similar story here. I have a couple dozen ZWave switches and other devices in my house which have worked great for a few years now. I use Home Assistant with a USB ZWave radio. I've broken it a couple times while fiddling with it, but it has never broken on its own.
I do have a few wifi devices for cases where there is no good ZWave option (or the wifi options are just better, like the OpenGarage garage door controller).
I really enjoy being able to double tap the "off" position of the switch in our bedroom when we turn in for the night and have it do all the things (thermostats turned down, doors locked, garage doors closed, lights off, etc). Once that script finishes it triggers a verification script that double checks the status of all other devices and sends a push notification to our phones confirming everything was done.
Lutron Caseta is the only 100% reliable smart home system I have encountered. It just does not go offline, ever. The cloud functionality is completely optional and additional. Your home internet AND WiFi can burst into flames and your lights will still work.
The thing that I like about the Lutron system is that you can try it, with just a single switch or lamp module. Then, if you like it, you can buy more.
I previously used a different brand to control my aquarium lights and HATED it. When the app randomly made me enter my password to turn the lights on, I 1-starred it with a very frank, "my old-fashioned light switch doesn't randomly ask me to enter my password" in the review.
One complaint that I have about the Lutron system is that they don't offer relay-based modules. (The old X10 system did.) Aquarium lights run very poorly off of the Lutron modules, so I wired up some 120V relays for my aquariums. I also use a Lutron module to control an outdoor outlet for holiday lights, and had to do the same thing; wire in a high amperage 120V relay into the switch.
I came across that a few years ago. I'm not sure why I didn't use it. I suspect it's because I wasn't sure if it'd work with the hub, or if it was pico-only.
At least as far as controlling the outlet for holiday lighting: It is a 15-amp circuit, and I could easily anticipate plugging in a power-hungry tool at some time.
In that case, there’s also a 16A version! (16A is 80% of 20A) It’s only rated for up to 1/2 HP motors. If your 120v power tool is over ~10A, you’d want to have the power pack trigger a motor-rated line-voltage contactor, and that contactor would turn the power on and off.
Do you know if they have a simple smart outlet? I want to use one with my Christmas tree lights because getting to the switch is difficult. I looked on Amazon and didn't see anything so I ended up ordering a cheap Refoss device that I have very low expectations for.
The indoor version is a lamp dimmer. I just want a simple on/off outlet. The outdoor version is functionally close to what I want, but it’s big and ugly - something I don’t want inside.
A dimmer is a superset, in functionality, of a binary switch. Using the Lutron app or something like Home Assistant, you can treat the device like a simple on/off and drive the device to only values of 0% or 100%.
I installed Homekit compatible Hunter ceiling fans almost a year ago and they have worked without issue since. All I had to do was scan a QR code to add it to my network. I feel like as long as you read reviews, you can stick to the quality stuff that works.
I would be a total brand whore if there was one single brand that offered all the smart devices I wanted. I love Lutron but they don't offer garage door openers or smart plugs so I'm stuck with Meross for those. Nothing wrong with Meross but they don't offer switches without neutral, yada yada. First world problems I suppose.
Similiar here - we had some older Zigbee / Z-Wave switches that were constantly breaking. Switched everything to Lutron, rock solid since then. The Pico remotes are incredible - we have some mounted in switchplates in places where we wanted 3-way switches, but didn't want to tear apart our walls running wires. Zero issues.
>I have 18 different lights to turn on and I can just hit one switch on my way downstairs and it’s fully illuminated (no voice command necessary) and I don’t have to visit 18 light switches to turn them off again.
In the analog world we'd just wire those 18 lights on a circuit controlled by a single switch...
The mismatch is the "only one" vs "using one" switch comment. That would be an insane circuit with time and material costs to match to meet residential code with 18 devices and a handful of switches covering every door, stairs, etc. I did a complete rewire of a large house a few years back and went with Lutron for this exact purpose. Yes, every light has (at least) one physical switch in the primary location. But it's $30 and 15 minutes to add each of the (wireless) secondary switches at every location. It is a huge benefit to time/materials/flexibility/future proofing.
It’s a hell of a lot easier to just… not do that, though. I also have a Lutron system and it was amazing to be able to wall mount a wireless remote to add an extra power switch rather than rewire the entire room.
i’m replacing all my caseta and pico with dumb switches. the radio bits and the color matching are of utmost quality. the ergonomics of these devices however is exceptionally poor, and an example of market segmentation. (ra and ra2 provide the entire switch as a target).
zwave doesn’t come close to the reliability of lutron so dumb it shall be
> Sure, but how do you turn the lights on when the power's out and the router is down?
Taking this as joke as one doesn’t often turn on lights when power’s out …
But I used Caseta in a home with a generator since the Lutron light switches and dimmers are physical switches that happily work without any smarthome features.
Unplug your hub and they all work except for the ones that don’t get wired (the ones that are their remote, just stuck on a wall).
Pretty much the top selling point of Caseta for me, was working like normal switches. Gravy is how much more responsive than Hue or similar.
I actually have a natural gas generator that powers the majority of the house, and I was happy to see the lights all worked fine during an outage when the internet was down along with the power. The switches all obviously worked, but the Home app worked too so I could continue to set scenes/etc. It was quite nice!
While they've always sold dimmer switches at the store for the average homeowner, they're better "known" for commercial installations. Think the lighting controls and software to manage the lighting for an entire office building, corporate campus, museum, etc. The expectation in terms of reliability and scalability is a bit different.
The switches aren’t Wi-Fi connected, because Wi-Fi would be an awful choice for 50 devices that you only communicate with a few times a day. They use their own wireless frequency and communicate in a really simple/reliable way to the bridge, which is wired to my router and doesn’t need an internet connection to work.
There’s no always-running cloud service, the light switches work even when the internet is down (and I can still use the home app too in such an event, just no voice control.)
Siri is finicky sometimes, but I’d wager a 97% success rate in saying things like “set the scene Evening Downstairs” and “turn off all the lights except in the bedroom.”
My favorite aspect is that the pico switches can be programmed to switch whole rooms of lights on and off, which makes it so much nicer in the basement where I have 18 different lights to turn on and I can just hit one switch on my way downstairs and it’s fully illuminated (no voice command necessary) and I don’t have to visit 18 light switches to turn them off again.
Home automation tech must be invisible and fall back gracefully, and must always be interact-able in a “dumb” way, or else it’s just playing games IMO.