Lutron Caséta Smart Switches Are the Most Reliable Devices in My Smart Home
I’ve owned them for over four years, and unlike most of my smart devices, they’ve never let me down
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When I press the “on” button on the light switch for the chandelier over my kitchen island, it turns on in an instant. When I ask Alexa to turn it off, the light turns off. When I tap the light in the Apple Home app on my phone, it turns on. And when I press the ‘“off” button on the light switch, the chandelier turns off once more.
I know: Turning a light on and off is not a novel concept. But it’s remarkable that my Lutron Caséta smart switches do it quickly, every single time, without fail.
Smart home devices aren’t known for being reliable, let alone easy to set up. As Consumer Reports’ resident smart home expert, I know this all too well. My home is a living laboratory of smart home gadgets (sometimes to my wife’s chagrin). If you count various sensors and smart smoke detectors, we have over 70 smart devices in our home, including an LG smart refrigerator, a Genie smart garage door opener, and an Eve Aqua smart hose timer for our garden.
No Neutral Wire Needed for Older Homes
Most smart light switches have one pesky requirement that can be a deal breaker if, like me, you live in a home built before the mid-1980’s. They require a neutral wire, which is needed to keep the smart switch powered even when the light is off. That’s true for Lutron’s simple on/off switches but not for the company’s smart dimmer switches.
When I bought these switches back in 2019, Lutron was the only big lighting company making switches that didn’t need a neutral wire. Now a handful of other brands make them, too, including Aqara, GE Lighting, Inovelli, and Leviton.
They’re Easy to Install and Set Up
I had an electrician install one of the Lutron dimmer switches for the chandelier he installed, but I installed and set up the other dimmer switch, the wireless Lutron Pico remote (that functions as a secondary switch), and the Lutron Caséta hub on my own.
If you’re not comfortable working with electrical wiring, you should absolutely hire an electrician to do it for you. But if you want to give it a shot, Lutron includes paper instructions to walk you through all of the steps.
Lutron dimmer switches are just as easy or difficult to install as any other light switch. You have to shut off the power to the switch, disconnect and remove the old light switch, and wire up and mount the new Lutron smart switch. Because I was installing the switch in a three-way lighting circuit in my home office, I needed to use the Lutron Pico remote as the second switch in the circuit. (A three-way circuit means the circuit has two switches and one light fixture, giving you a total of three. These circuits allow you to turn lights on and off from different locations, such as each end of a hallway, and their wiring is a bit complicated.)
Photo: Lutron Photo: Lutron
Installing the Pico remote is easy. All you have to do is remove the existing secondary switch and close the circuit by connecting the line wire (which feeds electricity to the switch) and load wire (which sends electricity from the switch to the light fixture) inside a wire nut. You then mount the Pico remote over the switch box and put a switch cover over it, making it look just like a regular Lutron dimmer switch. Overall, installing the Pico remote was much easier than having to install another smart switch to complete the three-way circuit (which many other brands require you to do).
Where the Lutron system’s setup really shines is when you have to connect everything to the internet. First, you set up the Lutron Caséta Smart Hub and pair the switches and remotes to it. The hub lacks WiFi, so the only way you can connect it to your home network is by connecting it to your router with an Ethernet cable. You then set up the hub in the Lutron smartphone app. The app walks you through the setup process and helps you pair all of the switches and remotes to the hub, getting you up and running in a matter of minutes.
That might sound complicated, but the setup process worked smoothly and without glitches for me. That’s not true for most of the smart home devices I’ve set up, both for myself and when reviewing products for CR.
Variety of Switches, Finishes, and Accessories
Another big perk of the Lutron Caséta system is that it offers a variety of different switches, color finishes, and accessories. In addition to the four-button “original”-style dimmers that I own, the company makes two-button on/off switches, traditional paddle-style dimmers and on/off switches, fan speed control switches, and dimmer switches for low-voltage lighting (such as under-cabinet lights).
All of these Lutron switches are available in either four or six color finishes, depending on the model. Those colors are brown, gray, white, ivory, light almond (a light beige color), and black. The switches with just four colors ditch the brown and gray options.
In addition to the switches, Lutron offers a ton of accessories and other devices. There are indoor and outdoor smart plugs, wireless Pico remotes to match every type of Lutron switch, motion sensors, and a wireless remote for Sonos speaker systems. Heck, there’s even a car clip so you can use a Pico remote to turn on your lights when you pull in the driveway. I haven’t yet expanded my setup beyond my Lutron switches and Pico remote, but I appreciate having so many options.
No other lighting company I know of offers this array of devices, colors, and accessories. But before you go nuts adding remotes and accessories, be warned that the Lutron Caséta Smart Hub is capped at controlling 75 devices, including smart plugs, remotes, and even the company’s Serena smart shades. That limit isn’t an issue in my 1,200-square-foot home, but I’ve heard of people running up against that restriction in bigger houses.
Lutron Works With . . . Everything?
When you shop for most smart home devices, you’ll usually see “Works With” badges for Amazon Alexa and Google Home on the packaging or online listings. Sometimes you’ll also see Apple Home or Samsung SmartThings, but it’s rare to see all four.
Lutron works with all four major smart home platforms, and then some. The products also work with smart thermostats (from Carrier, Ecobee, and Honeywell Home), Ring doorbells and cameras, Sonos smart speakers, Hunter ceiling fans, Xfinity Home systems, and more.
In fact, the only thing they don’t work with at the moment is the Matter smart home standard. Lutron is a member of the organization making the standard, but the company has yet to add support for it to the Caséta system. That said, adding Matter wouldn’t help Lutron that much. The standard allows smart home companies to easily support multiple platforms (Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung, etc.) and Lutron already does that.
The Only Downside: They’re Expensive
All of the switches cost around $60 to $70 per switch with the exception of the low-voltage dimmers, which cost $120 per switch. Now that’s a lot of money for a light switch—and it’s why I don’t have them in every room of my house.
Instead, I have other smart light switches. They’re not as reliable as the Lutrons, but they do work. These include smart switches from Aqara, Leviton, TP-Link, and a small company called Zooz. (Skip Zooz unless you’re deep into the smart home like me. It requires a Z-Wave smart home hub and downloading custom software drivers to set it up.)
Aqara makes on/off smart switches that cost $36 to $46 per switch depending on the model. They require an Aqara hub, sold separately, but they offer single and double rocker switches both with or without the neutral wire requirement. Through the hub, they also support Matter, so you can use them with any major smart home system.
Both Leviton and TP-Link make WiFi light switches that connect directly to your home WiFi network. This makes them easier to set up, but having a lot of them could clog up your home network.
Leviton Decora Smart switches cost $40 to $50 per switch and they have a variety of models and accessories, including no-neutral switches that use a hub. They also work with the major smart home systems and are starting to support Matter.
TP-Link sells smart switches under its Kasa and Tapo lines. They cost $20 to $50 per switch, but I often see them on sale for even less. TP-Link offers dimmers, on/off switches, and motion-sensor switches, but all of them require a neutral wire. Depending on the model, they support some or all of the major smart home systems (confusing, I know) and their newer models support Matter.
I don’t think you will be disappointed with these more affordable switches. All three offer a good experience, but none of them are as polished or reliable as Lutron. They also don’t offer nearly as many ways to customize and expand your home’s lighting. The 60+-year-old lighting company knows what it’s doing, and it’s charging a premium for it. I just wish Lutron would make its light switches a tad more affordable so I could buy more of them.
