My SmartThings bridge is being discontinued in a couple of months, and I'm looking to move to Hubitat. Along with that move, I'm looking to upgrade my switches / motion sensors. (They are currently ZWave (non-Plus), and at least 2 of the brands I've used don't work with Hubitat) After reading a few threads on here, looks like Lutron Caseta is a popular choice.
I generally prefer open standards, would lean ZWave Plus, but after my SmartThings experience, I want responsiveness!. I'm tired of waiting seconds for a light to turn on.
I used Groovy on ST to create alot of custom logic that I'm looking to bring over to HE, and I worry about the addressability of the Lutron devices in the HE scripting language. Also, adding another layer of things that can fail is not ideal.
BUT my primary motivation is responsiveness. I was wondering if anyone had any insights into responsiveness differences between ZWave Plus and Lutron Caseta?
I use Caseta switches simply because they work. Though inovelli is a great responsive z-wave switch as well. You really can't go wrong with either one. Just remember to pair the innovellis without security or they will get bogged down.
IMO, if you have a really well constructed zwave+ mesh, then I imagine responsiveness would be very good. And there certainly are community members with responsive meshes.
OTOH, Lutron Caseta in my experience is bullet-proof and super-responsive. My motion automations, using zigbee motion sensors and Caseta switches/dimmers takes less than 200 ms from motion detected to the switch/dimmer being actuated.
I have the Caseta Pro bridge on the same network switch as my Hubitat hubs.
This shouldn't really be a concern; the language (and sandbox it runs in) are very similar, and as with SmartThings, the exact device on Hubitat doesn't matter, as it basically abstracted away by device capabilities. Chances are your SmartApp looked for things like capability.switch or capability.switchLevel and worked with mostly standard commands (and attributes) from those capabilities, and that part is the exact same, along with being able to run custom commands if the DTH/driver exposes them.
That being said, I can't speak to the rest of the concerns. I know lots of people here love Lutron, and I do too, but mostly for the button devices (Pico remotes) and sensors (requires RA2 or greater for Hubitat integration). I'm sure the switches/dimmers are good, too, but I haven't had bad luck with Z-Wave, and most of my bulbs are smart bulbs that aren't directly controlled by any switches/dimmers anyway, so I'm a bad test case...
When I came over from SmartThings to Hubitat in early 2018, I noticed my old GE Z-Wave (non Plus) switches and dimmers will still a little flakey. I bit the bullet and converted my whole home over to Lutron Caseta (with the requisite SmartBridge Pro for Hubitat's integration to function) and I haven't looked back at Z-Wave. The Lutron equipment 'just works', every time, without fail. I went from a family who tolerated my home automation hobby and were often annoyed when a Z-Wave switch stopped responding for no reason, to a family that started to ask if more lighting in the house could be automated. Now, we rarely touch a light switch, relying instead of contact and motion sensors for most lighting, along with some time-based rules for outdoor and other selective lighting.
The Lutron Caseta Lighting System can also be directly integrated with Apple HomeKit, Apple Watch, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Logitech Harmony Hub, Sonos, Ecobee, Ring, IFTTT, SmartThings, Hubitat, Home Assistant, etc... It is really nice knowing you'll have so many options available for integration when using Lutron Caseta.
Also remember - this is not necessarily an if/or decision...
All but 3 of my dimmers are Lutron and all my switches are Inovelli Red. The benefit of the Inovelli Switches is the ability to use its LED to notify you (ex.: pulsing blue when the garage door is open) when something happens. Also, the switches look like standard switches.
Both Inovelli switches/dimmers and Lutron dimmers respond extremely quickly.
Really the only downside to Lutron with hubitat is that you will need to rely on other devices to make up your Zigbee and z wave mesh. I have iris plugs all over my house.
I use both. I have a bunch of Pico remotes that I use. I also have a Caseta fan controller. Currently I've decided to use two Pico remotes wall-mounted to control a 700-series Zooz dimmer for a mock 3-way setup. The picos respond at virtually the same speed as if I hit the dimmer switch directly.
My concern about mixing and matching is the quality of the mesh.. Feels like the more I commit to one technology, the better the network for that tech will be..
Well you can always go to a multi-hub configuration!
Only semi-serious... As mentioned in another thread I have a hub setup for each "protocol"'/type: C-4 - Network & Lutron, C-5 Zigbee, C-7 Z-Wave.. Now the only reason I did this was because I had the hubs lying around and was experimenting (does work well though). I wouldn't necessarily recommend this unless you have the hubs already onhand or are using large numbers of different types of devices and possibly a bunch of cloud stuff.
The hub is designed for multi-protocol use so I would not worry too much about it.
Over time, most of us build strong z-wave and zigbee meshes. Lutron's ClearConnect isn't a mesh protocol in any event, although it does support a single repeater.
I have a mixture of z-wave+/z-wave devices on one of my hubs - everything is sufficiently responsive. My other hub has just zigbee devices, and they're also responsive.
The cool thing is - you can start out with a single hub and if that does not work for your use-case you can always add... HubMesh feature makes it very easy to share devices between hubs..
Quality of mesh doesn't really enter in to it. First lutron uses it's own hub and talks to hubitat via telnet (both HE and Lutron are hard wired so much more reliable than wifi) Z-wave and zigbee use different radios so different meshes and they don't interfere with each other. Most of us use a combination of all of the above. I have a very strong z-wave and zigbee mesh. I don't even remember the last time I had a failure (and when it did it was my fault) I'll also point out I have a hue bridge as well (also hard wired) simply to throw shitty zigbee bulbs on for the occasional table lamp. Most zigbee bulbs are bad repeaters and shouldn't be connected to the same mesh as your other zigbee devices. The exception to this is sengled and the newer zigbee 3.0 bulbs (sengled doesn't repeat so don't interfere with the mesh)
To add to @rlithgow1ās comment - if you want to help build your Z-Wave mesh, then going with Z-Wave switches will help. You can also install Plug-in Z-Wave repeaters like the Ring Range Extenders 2nd generation if you decide to go with Lutron and want to extend your Z-Wave mesh.
As everyone else here knows, Lutron caseta switches/dimmers are highly reliable and dependable.
However, there are two downsides (according to most people):
they are definitely more expensive than your standard zwave/zigbee switch/dimmer. How much more? Maybe as much as twice as expensive, maybe as little as 40% more. Depends on many factors.
you (or your family), have to like the look of the Lutron caseta switch/dimmers. I can tell you that a number of people have told me that they don't like the look, and a number of people have told me they do like the look.
Yep my wife does not like the futuristic look but I snuck them in the basement. Also if you are not used to the switches there is some fumbling around if you can't see them thanks to the flatness of the buttons.. Of course with proper automation the fumbling is less.
The other disadvantage would be needed a bridge to connect the devices.
That's the biggest PLUS for Lutron. Is you can literally create 3 way switches on any light switch you desire without needing an electrician, with these cheap little $15 button devices, plus remote control almost anything.
I didn't realize Lutron wasn't a mesh protocol. Based on cost and preference for the paddle type switches, I'm going to start out with ZWave+ across the board, but add a Lutron Hub for the Pico switches. If I have issues with ZWave+, I will switch to Lutron.
