Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsWORKS IF YOU USE APP SCENES - Not good as PHYSICAL SWITCHES/DIMMERS!
Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2021
I’ve had Lutron ‘electronic’ dimmers since they came out about 20 years ago.
Throughout they’ve kept up with new tech like CFL’s & LED’s & allowed programming switch using the 2 key built-in buttons.
ORIGINAL UNITS: were VERY elegant, aesthetic & simple - only 3 BUTTONS + parallel LED indicators - VERY easy & intuitive to operate: a single long & narrow ‘rocker’ button on the side that you pressed up to increase intensity and down to decrease.
Once you had set your desired intensity level, all you needed was to TAP ONCE the main large rectangular button (taking 90% of the switch) to turn lights on to that LAST desired level, AND TAP ONCE MORE to fully turn off.
At bottom of switch was a very small discrete ’pull kill switch’ to prevent electricity from flowing at all to the light /source.
SWITCH was SIMPLE, ELEGANT, INTUITIVE & super functional.
These units also had a feature that if u ‘long pressed’ them for a few seconds when ‘on’ (vs tapping on/off), they would give you 30 secs before they’d turn off for you to exit the room & not trip over items in the dark.
Moreover, once they reached the 30 seconds, they wouldn’t just turn off out right, but would slowly dim 10% at a time so you’d know it was turning off and either exit the room or go back for more time.
MAIN ISSUE with ‘SMART’ UNITS: switches themselves are fairly ‘DUMB’ in comparison to original ones. Besides ability to be controlled remotely, they have absolutely no other logic in them.
They now have FOUR BUTTONS (plus kill switch) which are COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY and layed out in the same space where there was only 1 tap button before - so they are almost impossible to nail and press the desired button in the dark.
WORST OF ALL, DIMMER is not just PLAIN DUMB, but ALSO FORGETFUL - whatever DIMMER SETTING you set it to, it WILL FORGET the moment you turn it off.
Who was the genius that ’REIMAGINED’ an elegant intuitive easy to use dimmer into this nightmare? He/she should be FIRED IMMEDIATELY.
I’m guessing he/she thought you’d walk around the house with your phone in hand and whip out the app, and flip through menus and screens until you found the right switch to turn it on off?
Even then, you’d still have to remember what dimmer setting you like for EVERY LIGHT IN THE HOUSE so you can TAP IT ONE-TAP-AT-A-TIME (75 taps for 75% - or slide close to it and then fine tune tap to reach specific value) - again, shot in the head wouldn’t be sufficient of a penalty LOL.
TO DEAL with this EGREGIOUS LACK IN JUDGEMENT, you need to BUY ONE PICO REMOTE (@$12-20 each) FOR EACH DIMMER as the PICO BRINGS a FIFTH ROUND BUTTON (literally LAYED OUT on ‘TOP’ of the other 4) that you CAN PROGRAM for a specific dimmer setting.
WHY?????????????? was this even necessary?
In the end that IS how I’VE HAD TO DEAL with this EGREGIOUS LACK IN DESIGN (a very expensive fix).
Also, ONLY BECAUSE I’m someone who enjoys having ALL THE LIGHTS ON at the same time throughout the house, I created SCENES in the app that just TURN ON ALL THESE LIGHTS in the house (or a room) AT ONCE using all the desired dimmer settings - you can also program the PICO REMOTE to store ONE SCENE settings in this ROUND BUTTON. However, note that remotes don’t link to the scene directly - alternatively, once you activate a scene via APP, then you tell the PICO to store all the dimmer settings for the lights you’ve ASSIGNED TO IT.
However, note that if you update that scene in the app, you ALSO need to REPROGRAM EACH SEPARATE PICO for that scene (i.e. say you & your spouse each have a PICO on their nightstand to turn off the house lights and you add/remove a light/lamp to the scene, etc).
UNFORTUNATELY, if you are one of those persons who turn lights on/off as they enter/exit each room, LUTRON IS NOT FOR YOU!!!!!!!!!!
Especially since they are SIGNIFICANTLY MORE EXPENSIVE than pretty much all other similar systems out there.
The only plus to this system is that it IS RELIABLE in turning lights on/off quickly and that it doesn’t bog down your Wifi router by having 30-50 switches and items hooked up to it when you do full house.
Lastly: note that if you want to add these to CEILING FANS, it can be PROHIBITIVELY EXPENSIVE as you need 1 FAN-SPECIFIC DIMMER + 1 LIGHT DIMMER (~$130 for these) These geniuses haven’t figured out what every other $30 fan remote add-on unit out there did since late 80’s, which is ONE WALL SWITCH + ONE CEILING FAN CANOPY REMOTE UNIT.
CONSEQUENTLY: you’ll need a 2-SPACE WALL ELECTRICAL BOX to put BOTH DIMMERS and a 4-WIRE CABLE going to EACH FAN (if you don’t have this, adding it with electrician can cost I’m guessing $150-$300 depending where you live).
But it doesn’t stop here. Since you’d want to control the fan using a PICO REMOTE (else find phone, open app, find that fan, adjust each setting), you need to add another $30-$60 for that bc FAN PICOS cost way more & are harder to find (unless online).
So, you are looking at a total cost $310-$500 PER FAN to use the CASETA system; and that’s if you don’t add additional items like the PICO REMOTE PEDESTALS bc these are TINY REMOTES & easy to lose inside drawers, linens or furniture.
