Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsOverhyped and disappointing when it comes to real world use. But it actually works with LED, like ALL switches should in 2017.
Reviewed in the United States on August 17, 2017
How does the saying go? Two steps forward, three steps back? That couldn't be more true of this product. We recently "upgraded" to Lutron's Caseta, from their Maestro, as, after a year of trouble free use, the Maestro decided it didn't want to work with LEDs anymore and Lutron said it was never supposed to, even though it worked great for a year. While the Caseta has brought back trouble-free operation with LED bulbs again, in some "key" areas, it's been a major downgrade, rather than the clear-cut improvement over their Maestro line that the price premium might lead one to expect. Instead we get a product with some advanced bells and whistles for those who live their life tethered to a phone, but one that seems to forget all about some more critical aspects of core, practical, real-world functionality, and fails to carry over extremely desirable, maybe even pivotal for some, features of the Maestro generation.
Disappointingly, rather than keeping the Maestro design relevant to the LED era and offering an LED compatible version of their Maestro design, Lutron instead chooses to continue making the same outdated product, forcing consumers to buy into Caseta, if remote operability is at all important to them. As this is the only option one can easily find that doesn't require taping yet another device into your homes already overcrowded and semi-unstable wifi.
Those who can justify spending sixty bucks on an overpriced switch and then another eighty bucks on a bridge just so you can turn on the lights to a room you're not even using, will no doubt love this product, even though they can get the same from lesser esteemed brands for half to a third of the price. After all, Lutron is a company from the high priced commercial sector that's more recently gravitated to residential and still used to the same kind of premiums for better service. And, I'll admit, their product support is commendable. I've had to call several couple times and have always been greeted with a friendly and knowledgeable agent who had the training to answer even the tough product questions instantly without putting me on hold while they looked up the answer. It was easy to get a replacement for a switch that started to fail prematurely. And that's the kind of service you're paying for when investing in a switch in this price range.
I've built homes for a living for decades. I've worked on everything from remodeling doublewides to building smallish 13,000 square foot mansions from the ground up. My beef with this switch isn't with it's build quality nor even with it's price, really. I only feel that at it's current price, Lutron dropped the ball, ignoring a very large, if not larger market, in an era when home automation isn't ready for primetime, and those who do value such are more likely to go a different route than this switch. I'm not one to praise a company fundamental competence. But I will rip into them when they virtually ignore core values in favor of novelty or rather gimmicky features. To some extent, that's exactly what Lutron has done with Caseta in many ways. Here's a few:
1) Unlike their Maestro switch, you've got a wall switch that's functionally useless to anyone who doesn't live in the household. Seriously, guests see this thing and can't figure out how to turn on or of the lights. In the daytime! Forget trying to find the light in the dark when they might actually need light. If you're not used to this wall switch, you'll need a flashlight just to see what you're doing. It looks as much like a temperature control as a light switch, with it's two unnecessarily large up/down dimming buttons taking up half of the switch. The Maestro switch featured one long, solid, easy to find button that you could tap anywhere to turn on or off the lights, with a thin dimming button on the side that was out of the way, for good reason, because it's HARDLY EVER USED!! Children are also going to have a lot of problems with this switch at first, especially considering how young kids are always in a hurry. But finding the light switch in the dark just became a whole lot harder. The illuminated LEDs makes it easy to find the location of the switch itself in the dark. But that isn't very helpful when you still have to feel for the top 1/3 of the switch in the dark, assuming you even know that's the one and only place you can press it to get the magical surprise of illumination.
2)Lets focus a little on the remote control next. Sure, it's kind of nifty that you can pay an extra 25 bucks for a dollars worth of plastic to get their exclusive wall plate remote control frame to create another switch for rooms that need multiple switches. But, that's hardly something to be praised for 99% of applications, as it's ultimately just gimmick compensating for their sixty dollar switches inability to do something that most others can do for less than five bucks. Sorry, no cool points for you there Lutron. This capability is more genuinely useful in that rare situation where the building designer didn't allocate as many wall switches as were adequate for the openings in the room, which is more likely to occur in unlicensed remodeling jobs or VERY old structures before there was an enforced building code, as building code, in NC anyway, has prevented such shortsightedness for many, MANY decades. But for most homes, what this design novelty will really mean is a remote that's a LOT harder to find and easier to lose than the previous one that was over 3x the size. Sadly, Lutron still hasn't learned from past mistakes and added a simple always illuminated LED to the remote itself. Which isn't that the main point of having a remote controlled switch, so that you don't have to stumble for the wall switch in a dark room? That's a serious oversight, several generations going, that's pretty inexcusable IMO, for any such device, much more so for one of this price premium.
That said, this remote does improve on the previous switch in one, very meaningful way, it's omnidirectional and has outstanding range. I assume they're using Bluetooth, as the remote signal passes through walls and the remote doesn't have to be pointed directly at the switch, unlike the larger Maestro remote. Unfortunately, it's design is palpably identical, it's almost impossible to tell which is the top and which is the bottom, just by feel in a dark room. So, should you be able to find it, you might end up trying to turn off the lights when they're already off.
3) There are other worthy criticisms, but this will be my last, as I've already gone on longer than I should have. We use this remote in a dedicated home theater, to be able to turn off the lights from our seat, as well as be able to turn them on quickly for quests who need a bathroom break mid-movie, particularly kids who sometimes try to exit the room with such haste as if they'd already been holding it for a half hour. That in mind, we were extremely disappointed that the much higher priced Caseta switch didn't carry over some of the more desirable dimming flexibility of the Maestro line, like variable dimming speeds. The Maestro could be programed to instantly turn the lights on, which was beneficial to guests especially who were used to a more instant response when turning on the lights. When the lights gradually raise to full brightness, some guests tend to hit the button twice, thinking they didn't hit it correctly or fully the first time, if the lights don't come on fast enough, which we discovered can cause the switch to malfunction. We haven't had it happen yet with the Caseta, so maybe the more limited dimming programmability has helped. But it's only been a month - too soon to say.
The Maestro also allowed you to adjust the fade-to-off time slower than factory settings. Being a home theater application, we liked having the lights set to fade out over a longer time, like in commercial cinemas, than the rather brief time Caseta programs in from the factory. It had a really desirable ambient affect for home theater. Now, if we want to do the same, we have to do so manually, which, just isn't the "same" at all. In contrast, Lutron didn't correct an oversight with the Maestro's favorites setting. With Caseta you can now go directly to your favorites setting from the off position. With Maestro, you had to turn the lights on fully, before dimming it back down to your favorite dim setting, via the round, favorites button on the remote.
A novel, lavish, but largely dysfunctional design, in terms of practical real-world operability. But, sadly, the only real option available at the moment for those who need a remote controllable switch that actually works with LEDs.
