Dipping my toe in the Lutron pond

I can't believe how addicting the Lutron hardware is... :wink:

I have 14 more dimmers, 5 more switches, and associated Claro wallplates on order. I want to retrofit the second floor of the house to have everything clean, consistent, and working buttery smooth. My wife is going to kill me! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Agreed. I have 32 dimmers, 11 switches, and 20 picos. The only reason I stopped was that there aren't any more regular switches to replace, although I still have some picos left over that I'm going to mount on various walls for convenience. :slight_smile:

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Me too. The only downfall is the 50 device per bridge limit. I hit that a while ago, so my next step is to buy another bridge.

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At least you can, with Hubitat. With ST, 50 (one non-pro bridge per account) is a hard limit.

Well I must say everyone is quite convincing my smart bridge pro is on the way.

If anyone is interested the free shipping code posted still works.

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Welcome to the Lutron Addicts club! :wink:

One thing to be wary of... the Caseta Dimmers require non buzzing dimmable bulbs. I have had to replace quite a few CFL bulbs in the process, which I am fine with. I am using Philips Warm Glow Effect bulbs which are almost buzz-free. There is still a slight buzzing, but you really have to listen for it to hear it.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CFRCGKC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Of course, most incandescent bulbs are silent, but I’d rather use LED bulbs.

If anyone knows of any buzz-free bulbs, please share!

I've had good luck with Cree bulbs but the Phillips bulbs are much less expensive and, so far, just as good in terms of no buzz and dimming down to quite low.

I had to remove a bunch of no-name LED bulbs that I got from SuperBright LEDs - no fault of theirs really - I was on simple switches when I bought them but they don't dim. I didn't have many CFL bulbs left. They seemed to degrade (losing brightness) over time - long before actually failing. I haven't seen that as much with LEDs.

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Philips warm glow bulbs have worked well for me in terms of reducing buzzing. Prior to that I had some cree bulbs in my bedroom that had an annoying buzz when we had the lights turned low at night while watching TV, for example.

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One of the few blessings of mild progressive hearing loss is that these have to be very bad and very close to bother me. :slight_smile:

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So it arrived. And as I tend to do I jumped in without reading instructions. To my surprise I had button controller controlling my lights via Pico's in about 15 minutes. It was incredibly easy and just worked. Props to the hubitat team as always.

Next adventure. Wire up a dimmer.

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"It just works" was what hooked me.

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Always keep your eyes peeled for an Amazon warehouse deal. This arrived while I was away, and I just opened the box. Band new, unopened Pico for $27.56 CAD, that’s about $20 US!

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This is the first time I'm swapping one pico for another to control the same device. Wow, Lutron Elevated is amazing!

It was so simple to add the new Pico to the Caséta Smart Bridge Pro and swap them in ABC. Plus changing the type in the Lutron Integrator app made it easy to add the ramp up/down capability to the dimmer buttons, but still have the rules that smoothly dim on/off my Sengled Element Plus bulbs. I may still swap the bulbs for Trådfri bulbs, but for now this works incredibly well. Thank you Hubitat team and @stephack for the great work!

New Lutron fan controller going in later today.

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I am thinking of giving the Lutron Caseta line of dimmers and switches and picos a go (with a smart bridge pro) but I have to admit I am amazed at how expensive this stuff is! Even having a wholesale dealer account with my supplier the prices are crazy expensive. The markup is very minimal on these. I am sure I am not the only one noticing this? I am in Canada and so not sure if it is the same in the USA.

Many of us here in the USA buy Lutron Caseta from EnergyAvenue.com. A SmartBridge Pro is $88, and switches are dimmers are usually ~$43 to ~$47. Not exactly cheap, but they do 'just work' each and every time. I bought quite a few of my switches and dimmers (all brand new) via ebay, to save some $$$.

Can you Lutron specialists help me so I can become part of your club?

From what I can tell Lutron has shades/blinds to order like in the $200-300 range per blind.....do they offer a blind conversion available (hopefully much cheaper) to where you add a motor to an existing blind or no? If so point me to where.