#Zwave Vs Lutron Caseta

54 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

nova belfry
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So I am about to move into a new house and wanted to decide on a set of light switches. I have kind of decided on Lutron but have been swayed to Zooz and Zwave a bit and now I am back to Lutron.

Do you have any of the lutron switches? How many of these Lutron light switches do you have now in your home?

I have 75 dumb switches in my new house (a mix of 3 ways, dimmers, and single poles and a smattering of fans). It's a 4 story town home so i know i will probably need to install a range extender and that will take one of those device limits. I am wondering what happens if the lutron network gets congested with that many devices, if it will have any kind of degradation. Thoughts?

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As a followup, how does Caseta perform in HA? Is there any lag? It's rather old but i have heard it is fairly stable. My Zwave network stuff is solid right now and super fast, but i am afraid of adding more devices because I know if I add more zwave, it can cause issues in the network with certain sticks.

pallid nimbus
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Just curious, but how many zwave devices do you have now? And what kind of coordinator stick?

nova belfry
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Right now in my tiny apartment i am running like 6 zwave devices on the nortek combo stick, but I bought the zooz zwave 800 long range stick and intended on using that one in my new house. My goal in the new house was to have every light switch on zwave long range (gradually as we change switches out). Then probably like door/window sensors, tilt/shock sensors, garage door.

So in total, probably will have at least 100 devices or more by the time I have all my switches in

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spanning across 4 floors

pallid nimbus
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That should be well within the limits of zwave fwiw, especially with the 800lr stick. I think zwave would be ideal for you due to the mesh.

Is there a reason you don’t want zwave?

nova belfry
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i mean. i love zwave. had it in my old house and loved it. But my light switches have a permanence to them and i want to make sure i make a good decision with the type of switch i choose

pallid nimbus
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Got it.

nova belfry
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my old switches were Meross wifi, and i am trying to avoid wifi clutter as much as possible

pallid nimbus
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I have an 800lr stick, 3 floors, and mainly use zwave. No complaints.

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Yeah definitely avoid WiFi for this!

nova belfry
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lol

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unless i was on a 10.0.0.0 network i don't think i could do it

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Do you have LR switches?

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Wondering how they perform - if they aren't in range because of walls and disturbance, do they still communicate through the mesh as a fallback?

pallid nimbus
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Recently yes. Mostly not though, I’ve been building my network over 8ish years (first with SmartThings then HA for 4)

nova belfry
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Sounds kinda like my old house 😄

pallid nimbus
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You can choose to include them as LR or standard zwave. I don’t know if they fallback honestly— haven’t had route failures yet.

nova belfry
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Nice.

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Have you had any firmware issues with your stick? I have read some horror stories

pallid nimbus
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No. I actually had the same nortek stick as you up until this summer when I migrated everything to the 800 stick, but it’s been fine.

I’m using zwave js ui

nova belfry
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Did you do it baked into HA or did you setup a standalone box for ZwaveJSUI?

pallid nimbus
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Baked in

nova belfry
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Alright cool. I was debating on separating the two

pallid nimbus
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Sorry I don’t have info on the Lutron stuff

nova belfry
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No you actually helped me more than you know

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i was on the fence because i bought this 800 LR stick and haven't used it but read horror stories about it. So i have been hesitant to pull the trigger on switches and gone back and forth on them multiple times.

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Helps to chat with folks that have them

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Oh! Do your light switches act as repeaters?

pallid nimbus
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Yes they do, basically anything that has mains power seems to from what I’ve seen/tested

nova belfry
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So like if i have my HA setup in the basement, i would just need to setup my switches from the basement and move up the house

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I guess with LR it wouldn't need to be that way. But not sure how walls play into it

pallid nimbus
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Yeah. When I did the migration to the new stick I:
-setup the stick
-setup wired devices starting close and moving outward in distance
-setup all battery sensors etc running zwave

nova belfry
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Got it. Yeah that's how i excluded all my plugs in my last house. I did all that in reverse

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Door/window sensors, plugs

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Any gotchas? Anything you wish you did better?

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Zwave Vs Lutron Caseta

pallid nimbus
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I have a mix of Ge/inovelli/zooz for powered devices— I wish I didn’t get ge devices. They’ve been fine but the other stuff is better. Make sure you setup backups is zwave js ui itself. Other than that not really.

nova belfry
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I have used zwave for a few years now, but never at the scale i am about to be at. so that helps a lot

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I was probably going to go Mostly Zooz. But i will probably end up with a few Lutron Dimmers because #wifeApprovalFactor

pallid nimbus
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Fair. Look at inovelli for those too. Pricey but nice stuff.

nova belfry
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will do 👍 thanks for your input and experience! 🙂 it really is helpful!

pallid nimbus
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Happy to help! Have fun!

nova belfry
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Wife likes the arrows on the Lutron ones. 😅 and the little lights on them. I have a feeling that's going to be her decision for all the dimmers she touches.

nova belfry
mint wave
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Lutron is incredible, but you pay, also they basically have the no-neutral-wire market on lockdown which keeps the prices high probably

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I like both, since you're already setup with Z-Wave I don't see any reason to change

dusky island
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Personally I run both. Lutron for areas I need to be dependable and zwave for areas I don’t care as much about

pallid nimbus
nova belfry
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@dusky island @mint wave thanks for the input! Yeah i think i have a plan now. A majority of my switches will probably be zwave long range ones. But after conversing with my wife, she does not like the zooz dimmers, and likes the arrows and the way the lutron ones work after seeing them in action. So we will also have a happy mix in our house.

And i don't have anything anymore 😄 I sold my house in May and have been in an apartment while my new house is being built. It's been horrible not having my life automated #firstworldproblems. But we are about to be back in business and the fun is about to begin again making my house smart! 🙂

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I did do a quick Google -

A Z-Wave 800 Long Range (LR) device does not participate in traditional Z-Wave mesh routing. Z-Wave LR devices are designed to increase the transmission range between Z-Wave devices, and can provide wireless coverage up to 1.5 miles. This eliminates the need for mesh or network repeaters.
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So @pallid nimbus i think the Long range configured devices won't fall back to the zwave mesh or contribute to the network if configured as a long range device.