Any recommendations for great dimmable recessed lights

Looking for recommendations in case anyone has experience with this. I’ve just gone through and installed a bunch of Lutron Caseta dimmers and switches. Happy with the smart controls through HE, obviously but the actual LED recessed lights in my ceilings are a bit underwhelming when it comes to dimming performance. Essentially they don’t really dim far enough.

In a previous installation at an older house I relied mostly on lamps with Philips Hue smart white ambience bulbs for automation rather than smart switches. But in this new place, I went with switches. The Philips hue bulbs have a really exceptional dimming range, but my current recessed led lights, frankly, aren’t that great. They’re plenty bright but never get very dim. So at night they still have a bright almost half-on feel even at the lowest dim levels on the switches or HE, which is just annoying

Any recommendations for 6” recessed led can lights (smart or not is OK) which perform really well with dimming and color temperature? And no bulbs please. These need to be led retro kits in order to really fit the theme. Also, they need to work nice with Lutron Caseta dimmers (original and Diva).

And, just for context, I tried the prior gen Hue recessed kit but the faceplate was exactly the same size as the recessed can lip, which means that you can sorta still see just a tiny gap against the ceiling. Which is just annoying.

Though not using Lutron, my experience with LEDs and dimming is similar.

I'm in the UK and have had similar issues with integrated LED downlights combined with Z Wave dimmer modules. The lights calibrate correctly but the dimming range is nigh on useless. I can dim them down to level 1 and they're still bright enough to sit and read. In fact I rarely have any of the dimmable lights above level 7.

...and this is also an issue for me. Allegedly the downlights, with their larger driver, should be way better than a LED GU10 lamp with its electronics crammed into the cap of the lamp. I'm reluctant to swap integrated downlights for something 'inferior', however they're cheaper and seem to work better with regard to dimming.

Give me back my halogen GU10's or incandescent lamps with their perfectly wide ranging linear dimming! LED may be cheaper to run and better for the planet but this is not progress.

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I've using 6 of the below in my kitchen for years now. They dim great. I dug out a spare and took a picture of it. (I hope I didn't jinx it.)

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I don't have the retrofit ones, but Nicor is a trustworthy brand.
Look for high CRI, and high R9 value, in your preferred color temp.
There are also some dim to warm products that are now available to consumers. These more closely mimic the dimming of an incandescent light.

If you can stomach the price, go with the Hue retrofits. I installed 23 of the 6" ones in the house we bought about 2 years ago. As you said, the dimming range is exceptional. I have a number of them come on at sunset at level 1 (unless they're already on) and they provide just enough light for the intended purpose. At level 100 they are very bright.

I had the same issue with some of them as well. No real fault of the Hue lamps, just crappy drywall work by the builder that was masked by the older trim rings. Some lightweight spackling and a bit of paint took care of it.

I have all of my Hue retrofits controlled by Inovelli 2-1 dimmers with direct associations so control of the Hues doesn't go through the hub. For the most part, to automate the Hues I just send the appropriate commands to the Inovelli switches and even if the hub is down, the switches will always work.

There are no retrofit lights that dim well at the low end. End of story. People have become used to the poor low end performance so they often don't even recognize the issue. If you want to spend a lot of money and rip up your ceilings you can get good performance to 1%.

Not true. Hue retrofits dim down to a level that is barely noticeable unless you're looking directly at the light, and they never flicker or do anything weird. I can only speak to the 6" retrofits, but I imagine any other size works equally as well.

Only downside is the cost, but in this case I do believe you get what you pay for.

You are right, I read incorrectly that the OP was asking for non-smart LEDs, which is where there are no good dimming retrofit fixtures. As far as cost goes, the Hues are not that much different than the higher end non-smart retrofit fixtures that don't dim well.

I'll certainly take a look at those. Maybe buy one or two to test them out. I believe the ones currently installed are CE, but not sure.

The Nicor ones will be better and are probably one of the better low-mid end options. Dim lighting performance is about color as much as level. The Nicors at least are fairly even and not totally gray at low levels.

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I will check into those for other applications. Thanks!

That's essentially what I'm intending for my setup (just with Lutron Caseta dimmers instead of Inovelli). It's just so frustrating to have nice fancy lutron dimmer with really crappy dimming bulbs!

Not afraid of the cost for Hue bulbs if that ends up being the best way to get what I'm looking for. Don't get me wrong, if I were tracking budgets for this project, between all the Lutron switches and now bulbs, I'm pretty sure someone is going to strangle me. But since I'm choosing to close my eyes when I press buy, the problem isn't real. LOL

That's very true, IMO as well. Especially for their white ambience series of bulbs. once you go RGB, things can get a bit crazier.

@bill.d Those look really nice. I'll order one or two to test them out and compare with the Hue!

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I’m pretty happy with these wafer LEDs by Lithonia in my finished basement:

I had to go with the ultra-thin type since there’s essentially no room in the ceiling for anything bulkier.

Overall I’m with @bill.d that most retrofit options that work with line-voltage dimmers are gonna be suboptimal if very low dim levels are important.

Before I do any of that, I would see if I could calibrate the switch to dim lower. On my Leviton dimmers, I referenced the instruction sheet and found how to set the minimum dim level. Once the switch was in set dim level mode, I used the dim rocker to lower the bulbs until they went off then went up until they just turned on. Then set that as the minimum.

I think we're talking about two different things, unless Caseta dimmers use zigbee.

Since the Inovelli dimmers and Hue retrofits both use zigbee, the dimmers can be directly associated with the lights using zigbee group messages. The hub is not involved in sending those messages, the group message is sent by the switch. So, the switches will always control the lights whether or not the hub is running (doing a FW update, for example).

Fair point. Caseta dimmers have configurable low-end trim, but really it’s the right kind of fixture (and a low voltage dimmer) that will allow for the lowest possible dimming level before the bulb stops putting out any light whatsoever (or starts flickering).

Lutron has instructions for everything on their website.

Fair enough

off topic i dont use cans but have recessed can like sockets and use color hue bulbs.. they dim really low i use them on pink/purple on motion at night very low when i go into the bathroom.

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I really like this idea, but unfortunately, all the ceiling lights in my house have recently been refreshed to have a more uniform full recessed can look. I considered getting some diffuser plates and just use standard hue bulbs inside the recessed can.