I am buying a home and it has 4 Lutron Caseta dimmers in it. I have a Hubitat that appears to be able to integrate with the Caseta hub. How are Caseta dimmers? I am installing some more dimmers and want to know if I go all in on Caseta. Anyone have experience? Are they worth the money?
I have experience with Zwave dimmers and Zigbee - how do they compare to Caseta?
If you have a Pro2 Lutron hub you are golden. Search this site. Lutron and nothing else supporters in abundance. I don't actually have any Lutron switches but I love the Lutron Picos.
As bbrannon said, the Caseta Pro bridge (not the "plain" bridge that's more commonly available) is needed to use telnet for incorporating with Hubitat.
Caseta is bullet-proof -- the pinnacle of reliability in the world of smart home... Aside from my own desired tweaks here & there, I have very literally not needed to do any care-&-feeding of my Caseta stuff since installing it 5+ years ago, and it has never skipped a beat.
They don't have as many bells-&-whistles as some other smart switches (smart-bulb mode, customizable LEDs to use for alerts on the switch, etc) -- for some that's a blessing, and for others, a showstopper.
If it's a non-pro Lutron hub but a pro HE hub, I wonder if pairing the Lutron hub with HE via the Homekit Controller integration would do the trick.
I have no clue. I do not know how Lutron handles that with the non-pro hub. I'm sure others here would know.
Not yet. I’m hoping that it might soon though… Tagging @gopher.ny
Right, I got to get back on track with that one. It just moved up in the priorities list.
Lutron solid as a rock. I have close to 70 switches/dimmers/picos and they have never failed. A lot of my PICO's are over 10 years old and have never had their battery changed. (They get regular use)
Like @rlithgow1, I have Lutron Caseta dimmers, switches and Picos throughout my home. I have 43 devices, so Rick has me beat there. My experience has been similar to others. The system has been reliable. My only failure was a dimmer that was DOA; the replacement worked perfectly.
You do need the Lutron Caseta Pro hub to connect it to Hubitat using Telnet. The regular hub will not work.
Lutron uses a 900 Mhz band signal that travels further than higher bands. It is also a frequency that is less subject to interference.
The thing I like best about Caseta is that it works stand-alone. Even if the Caseta hub fails, the individual devices still work to control lighting. That is huge for the spousal approval factor. Even visitors will be able to control the lights.
When connected through the Lutron Pro hub, and integrated to Hubitat, you can automate the lighting. If you have a voice controller, you can also control the lights that way. I love Lutron integrated that way.
I just shutdown and unplugged my Hubitat hub. My Zooz LR switches and (1) dimmer continue to work just fine. And Z-Wave LR is awesome.
edit: Wireless no. Not even possible on LR.
I bought a Pro2 hub several years ago just for Picos. The only Lutron devices I own but they are scattered all over the house. In wall plates and on stands for shades, table lamps, bathroom vanity lights, fans. Love Picos!
For table lamps I use lifx bulbs and a pico on a pedestal on the same table. Works well.
Do the Picos work even when the Lutron hub is down?
That is a big advantage.
If they're paired directly to the switch/dimmer yes...
I don't actually know. The Lutron hub has never been down. I would not expect them to work. Just tested it, unplugged the Lutron ethernet cable and it did not work. However, surprisingly, when I plugged it back in the shade position command completed.
You'd have to pull power to the Lutron hub, gracefully, or is that needed, to simulate.
edit: gracefully, I meant. Maybe no need with Lutron?
Picos can be configured to control Lutron switches and dimmers directly, or through Hubitat.
If the Lutron hub ever goes down, the picos that are configured via Hubitat wouldn't work anymore. Picos configured directly via Lutron's app would.
But like others, I've never actually had a Lutron hub "go down." I used to use Caseta, and now have a RadioRA 2 system.
What bells and whistles are not available? Can you control the ramp rate? Default on level? Can you configure double tap and such? Are all these features exposed to Hubitat?
Yes