The midwit home

I searched the page for “Lutron” but was disappointed…

There is a line of lutron switches that are dead simple, no smarts, no hub … and a cute little remote that everyone in my family uses to “all off” the interior lights.

We have a no smart devices policy in the house and these make the cut …

EDIT: From my notes ... the specific product line is "maestro wireless" and I have MRF2-6CL switches paired with "pico" remotes. This is as opposed to the caseta line from Lutron which is quite a bit "smarter".

For what it's worth I do have the Caseta line and it is by far and away the most reliable part of my smart home setup. If it were possible I'd be powering everything with it but sadly the only way to get e.g. fans integrated is to buy one of a very small set of fans with Caseta functionality built in. So instead I have pico remotes talking to Home Assistant talking to the fans which... mostly works. But the Caseta part itself has been flawless.

Exact same thought here but with their Caseta lineup. It is one of the most easy to configure and reliable smart home things I have in the house.

I still use HA on a RPi4 for other things, typically via Zigbee, but the Casetas always work like you'd expect from a light switch while also enabling smart stuff like voice control or automations.

More votes for Caseta.

Are you talking about ceiling fans? If so, I've found that their fan switches work flawlessly - no need to buy any kind of fan with smarts built-in: https://www.casetawireless.com/us/en/products/dimmers-switch...

(Search the page for "Original Smart Fan Speed Control Switch", there's seemingly no way to link directly to the requisite page section... which is a thing I could rant about but will not).

Sorry, I should have been clearer. Those switches work great with fans that are already hardwired for a switch in the wall but a lot of modern fans (in my experience, maybe because I was buying cheap!) don't bother with that and have their own wireless system of some variety to control fan speed, lights etc.

My solution to that was to buy a Zigbee controller to go inside the fan. I wish Lutron sold some kind of standalone fan controller you could shove in there but alas.

Also a happy Lutron fan, but I went with RadioRA2. It's a bit "smarter" but it's very reliable, not connected to the internet, and some basics can even be programmed without the management software.

One thing that stands out with Lutron products is their use of a unique spectrum[0], unlike almost all other smarthome products that share the same noisy bands.

[0]: https://assets.lutron.com/a/documents/clear_connect_technolo...

The commercial versions of Lutron controls are an (expensive) option as well, if you are of the sort that really wants whole-home automation.

These things are installed in big fancy commercial buildings where there is an expectation that they last longer than the warranty, which is reassuring.

These things actually do pretty well at power conservation at these scales, but it's a little fuzzy if it will do the same for a home. Just swapping out LED for incandescent gets you pretty much all of the bang for your buck, but if you have people in your house who are allergic to turning off lights, the occupancy sensors will help a bit.

Lutron is a real company as well, an not an Amazon company, which is not nothing.

Ah I see, that makes sense.