Radiora2 retailers

Can anyone recommend a site for purchasing a radiora2 setup?

Also maybe clue me in as to what is a reasonable price.

Building a new home. I would like to have my stuff here and ready at move in time

Do you have the software/parts list? PM'd

I love RadioRa 2, and have a whole house full of it, and am designing another house full of it - even took the course in PA so I could get the Inclusive software. :+1:

But: I wouldn't use "reasonable price" to describe any of it. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: It's worth it, IMO, but it ain't cheap.

I ordered mine from whomever had the pieces I wanted. Amazon, Steiner, Electric Avenue, Prolighting, MrSupply, a couple others.

1 Like

For those using ra2 with hubitat. Do you utilize any automation from the lutron side or just pull everything into hubitat and and let it do the heavy lifting?

I use the essentials PC software to create scenes with the main repeater’s phantom buttons, which can then be used in my Hubitat automations.

You might get the best deal by ordering all devices from one reseller. I believe the prices of RadioRA 2 devices are intentionally opaque to the end consumer, since Lutron generally expects these systems to be sold, and then installed and programmed by a pro. So it might make sense to buy in bulk if your plan is to DIY it.

@bill.d is a good person to ask about this.

1 Like

Thank you @marktheknife

Yes this thought crossed my mind as I was going through the training.

I believe I've located a good source atm. So hopefully this master plan I have in my head will pan out...

The "tech" upgrade on the house we are purchasing is a casetta set up with nest doorbell nest thermostat and touchscreen honeywellbi believe. $5000. Lol such nonesense. When I tried to get the info on which lutron line he'd be installing he didn't know what I was talking about. Sent a pic of a casetta starter kit.

I wonder how many poor folks wasted their money on it.

I do as much as possible on the RA2 side, but invoke things with apps like Motion Lighting. It takes some planning and care. For dimmer-per-mode type stuff, I create a phantom button in RA2 for each mode setting, and off, then hit those buttons in Motion Lighting. You will find places throughout the apps where push a button is an option, and this is why. For example, even in Hubitat Scene, there is an option to push a button, so that the Hubitat Scene can be merged with the RA2 scene.

We discovered that with RA2 there is a 1 second delay when turning on a RA2 load from a RA2 device if Hubitat is in the middle (with Caséta it's a much worse a delay). But, there is a solution for this! It requires completing the RA2L2 training so as to be able to get Inclusive instead of Essentials. Then one uses two RA2 main repeaters and puts sensors, keypad, Picos, etc, on one of them, and loads on the other. Then pico to Hubitat to RA2 is instant (main repeater 1 to hub to main repeater 2).

This trick also works with Caséta (and Essentials). The RA2 side is setup for picos and sensors, and they can control Caséta devices instantly. To do this requires putting the main repeater on a different frequency, not its default frequency. Evidently both Caséta and RA2 use the same frequency, and the delay happens because of RF channel occupancy. RA2 allows the main repeater frequency to be set, so that's a way around the problem. RA2 main repeaters can be found used on eBay sometimes for $150.

I recently upgraded my RA2 setup to two main repeaters, and I'm loving it. Everything is super fast and reliable. I've got about 180 RA2 devices. We've been working on the Lutron integration recently, and hope to have some improvements in the not distant future.

5 Likes
  1. Get more than 1 bid on your job.
  2. Do the Level 2 training. It's 2 1/2 days and $ but you get a lot of good stuff including a main repeater and connect bridge
  3. Do as much scene programing in Lutron software as possible, use Hubitat for conditional control as others have suggested
1 Like

Just looked at this. Seems to be well worth the $650 price tag. Some goodies to go with the access.

Thanks everyone for your input. This rabbit hole was bit bigger than I expected. But what fun....

2 Likes

If I’m not mistaken, they used to offer the level 2 training in-person only, which has changed due to COVID. So definitely a good opportunity to consider (I’ve only done level 1 myself, which is always available online).

You think you could walk me through this once I'm ready?

In the Lutron software right click on the Main Repeater, choose Advanced Settings.

For the Picos:
https://www.lutron.com/TechnicalDocumentLibrary/OWT_Device_Freq_Change_Procedure_for_Multi-Channel_Systems%20F.pdf

If you manually change channels make sure you do it early in the process as you may need to factory reset devices.