Lutron Claro/Diva vs traditional Caseta

I decided to give Lutron Caseta a try (since everyone raves about it). Picked up a Pro bridge and its all set up and working, just set up one pico so far. I bought the kit with the pico and dimmer. I also picked up a Claro switch kit with paddle remote w/bracket.

Other than looks which I know is completely subjective, are there any functional differences or benefits to either style?

Surprisingly my wife is leaning towards the traditional style, I am on the fence. We have a lot of two and three gangs and not sure if the traditional style will look too busy with all of the buttons on the traditional caseta. Most of my house is on/off with only a few dimmers necessary.

I think the dimmers on the original style can do double tap while the newer style can't. (I may be wrong on that). That said, personally I prefer the original Caseta style. (I have around 60 pico, dimmers, and switches. )

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That would sway me (double tap). I thought that wasnt possible.

There is no double tap capability using an actual Caseta Switch or Dimmer. Only the Pico remotes support double tap within the Hubitat platform.

I have an entire house full of traditional Caseta Switches, Dimmers, Fan Controllers, and Pico remotes. I use Lutron Claro wall plates. This creates a very nice, clean, flat aesthetic. My wife has never complained about the appearance. I think she was thrilled that all of the old Almond colored switches and wall plates were replaced with White devices and wall plates. Having no visible screws is a nice feature of the Claro wall plates.

Since almost all of the lighting is automated based on motion or time-based schedules, we rarely ever touch the physical devices. I do have Pico remotes on each night stand, using the Lutron Pedastals. These are then used to control nightstand lamps, as well as overheard lighting and fans. It is nice to have a quiet way of controlling devices without disturbing someone else who is sleeping.

In the bedrooms, I even turned dual gang wall switch plates into three-gang wall plates. This allowed me to add another Pico remote to control nightstand lamps upon entering a bedroom. I did not change the electrical box to do this. I simply swapped out the wall plate with the pico added in using the wall plate bracket.

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How do the Claro wall plates differ from the wall plate you get with Picos and traditional style caseta?

Or do they just call all of the wall plates by that name?

This, AFAIK. Lutron's reusage of names (across both products & product lines) can be understandably confusing.

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They are the same wall plates. When I outfitted my house with Lutron Caseta, I bought a combination of Dimmer Kits (comes with the Caseta Dimmer, Pico remote, and single gang Claro Wall Plate) and Individual Switches, Dimmers, Fan Controllers, Claro Wall Plates, Pico Remotes, Pico Wall Mount Brackets and Pico Table mount stands.

I actually created a spreadsheet to make sure I bought the optimal combination of hardware kits vs devices to minimize cost. I bought from Energy Avenue, Amazon, Home Depot, and eBay to get the best prices.

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Traditional style also has an ELV dimmer, which is huge for a couple important use-cases our house.

New style line doesn't even offer a neutral-optional dimmer, let alone neutral-required. It seems like a significant gap to me, but perhaps their customer research says otherwise (unfortunately for me).

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I am an electrician so I can get them from my wholesaler at a little bit of a discount but it does get annoying with all of the different kits etc.. so i see your need for the spreadsheet LOL.

From reading I think one advantage of the Diva/Claro is they can be used with dumb 3-way,4way switches instead of more picos

The Pro bridge kit came with a traditional dimmer without neutral, I will have to hook it up today and see if it has smooth dimming etc.. with my LED lights

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Oh hello there, new freind!! :sunglasses:

Yeah, better options there in the new line. Plus, they even have an accessory switch for the new line. The multi-way improvements in the new line are nice.

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The new neutral-less Divas could well be the bees-knees, even in conditions where such a thing would be suspect. Heck, if anyone could pull that off, it's Lutron.

I haven't tried the Diva in place of any of myPD-5NEs (price makes that a hard-to-swallow experiment), so I suppose I shouldn't blanketly dismiss them as inferior to a neutral version. But installing a smart switch not using an available neutral just feels like I'm committing some kind of cardinal fraud lol.

This is what the Kit came with...Traditional Caseta but no neutral.

Yep, that one has long been a trusty workhorse for Caseta. The Diva is its heir apparent - obviously the Diva has a more traditional form factor, but I don't know if there were any significant changes to the guts.

The PD-5NE looks exactly like a 5-button Pico, and is neutral-required - that's the version that can do either MLV or ELV. If they ever make a new version of that, I'll likely throw a bunch more money at them again.

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Re: wallplates... Like all Caseta stuff, the Claro plates are nice. But pricey, of course.

I started with them, but I grew to dislike the "seam" look the more I lived with them. I replaced them with Eaton plates. Color/finish match is totally good enough for me, plus the Eatons are more reasonably priced and easily available on Amazon or at Lowes.

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They don't. Same plate. I use the claro plates on the 1st floor, but I use Enerlites plates in the bedrooms. They are less than half the cost of the lutron claro and look just as good

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Do the Enerlites get rid of the "seam" around the edges?

Yeah but honestly I like the double plate look of the lutron too...

https://www.amazon.com/Enerlites-SI8831-W-10PCS-Unbreakable-Polycarbonate-Thermoplastic/dp/B00R1XXOFC

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Yes. Enerlites are nice too. I found the Eatons to be ever so slightly "deeper" than the Enerlites, so they're a bit more forgiving of uneven wall / gaps than Enerlite (we have an old house). But it's admittedly been a while since I did that comparison.

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In the Telnet report there are 100 buttons that show at the beginning of the report, I assume this is normal?

Also, I set up the dimmer in the bathroom, and I am trying to get rid of the ramp up time. I set it to "ASAP" and with a "0" transition time but still ramps up when turned on by room lighting. However when I turn it on from the device page its instant.

What am I missing?