My husband is a major techie and works as an Information Technology director! Therefore, he is always trying the newest gadgets or mobile phone apps and adding smart technology into our home. Somehow, he doesn’t even read the directions. However, I am the opposite… It took me years to figure out how to use our television remote with Apple TV.
However, smart home technology doesn’t have to be complicated. It actually provides quick solutions to every day problems. For example, smart lighting with a voice, mobile phone, or remote ensures that you never have to enter a dark room. Or that you can set a scene with favored lighting and audio with just a voice command.
Recently, we added Caséta by Lutron Smart Dimmer and Smart Switches into several rooms into our home. Plus, we use the Smart Bridge to integrate smart lighting with our smart home devices.
Smart Lighting in Home: Smart Switch
With Caséta by Lutron, a single smart switch can make any bulbs smart. By doing more with less, and putting the ‘smart’ into the switch. You can get smart lighting switches to connect ceiling lights, lamps and outdoor lighting. For lamps, the Lamp Dimming Smart Plug makes lamps ‘smart’ by simply adding an additional smart plug to an existing electrical wall outlet.
For example, instead of replacing all the bulbs in four kitchen ceiling lights, you can replace it with one smart switch or smart dimmer. Then, all four existing light bulbs become smart bulbs. Even those vintage inspired or ‘Edison’ bulbs. Even when the wifi goes down. Because the brains are the switch, so no WiFi required. Even for homes built before 1980 without a neutral wire. The light dimmers are engineered to work with or without a neutral wire.
Smart Bridge for Smart Lighting Integration
The smart bridge is the device that allows you to have fast, reliable control of your lighting from a mobile phone, Pico remote control or voice with smart home devices. The smart bridge unlocks all Caséta functionality like voice control, scheduling or scene setting. Again, it doesn’t use Wi-Fi, so it doesn’t slow down the network or lose access when the WiFi is down.
With a smart bridge, Caséta allows you to create personalized schedules to turn lights on, off, or dim to fit everyone’s routines in your home. Or, activate favorite lighting scenes with the touch of a button whether it be from the Lutron app, or from the wall.
Most Connected Smart Home
Caséta by Lutron expands beyond lighting control and is the gateway to everything else in the smart home. It can be seamlessly integrated with other smart home products to control audio, video, security, temperature controls, shades and ceiling fans. So, you can say, ‘Alexa, dim the lights,’ or ‘turn kitchen lights off.’
We personally use Caséta, with our Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit and Ring devices. For the Ring, we set entryway lights to be motion activated. It turns on anytime motion is detected or someone rings the door bell.
- Amazon Echo or ‘Alexa’
- Google Home Assistant or ‘Hey Google’
- Apple HomeKit or ‘Siri’
- Ring Doorbell
- Serena Shades
- Sonos Audio
- Honeywell Home, Carrier or Ecobee Thermostats
- Hunter Ceiling Fans
- Xfinity Home Systems
- Wink Hub
- Stringify
- Logitech Harmony hubs for television
- SmartThings apps for television
- AT&T Digital Life
Lutron App for Mobile Phone
You can use the Lutron app from your smart phone to set light preferences at particular times of the day. Plus, control the lighting from inside and outside the home. With the Smart Away feature, you can randomly turn lights on and off, when you are away from home. When you leave or return home, the Geofencing feature, along with the Smart Bridge, allow you to automatically turn lights on by tracking the geographical location of your smart phone.
Plus, you can create scenes in different rooms of your home. The scenes can be stored in the app for a particular event. For example, in the family room, you can set different lighting options for entertaining, movie night or game night. In addition, you can turn lights on to a soft level every morning as you head into the kitchen for coffee. Then, you can use your smart speaker, like Alexa or Siri, to ask for that particular scene. Or use the Pico remote, to set it to favorite scene.
Pico Smart Remote for Smart Lighting in Home
The Pico Smart remote allows anyone in your home to control the lights without the need of an app, a password or even WiFi. Therefore, any family member or guest can use it, too. The best part of the Pico Smart remote is that it can work with more than one light. So, I use the Pico Smart remote in my bedroom to turn the ceiling light and bedside lamps on, off or dim with one click, from any where in the room. That’s smart lighting!
The Pico Smart remote comes with a small tabletop pedestal or can be surface mounted to the wall without additional wiring. Finally, the remote battery lasts ten years!
Outdoor Smart Plug
Recently, we decided to add string lights to our outdoor pergola to create a relaxing ambience while swimming or hosting backyard barbecues. It gets hot in Texas, so most of our time spent outdoors occurs in the early evenings. The Outdoor Smart Plug provides smart control for string lighting, landscape or holiday lighting; plus motors or pumps, for inflatables, fans, etc… It is weatherproof and can withstand extreme weather.
Since we have the Smart Bridge device, we can control our lighting from anywhere outside with the Lutron App or Pico Remote. Therefore, we do not have to go inside to turn the lights on, while we relax outside.
Thank you for stopping by the blog today. Most importantly, I hope you feel encouraged to integrate smart lighting into your home. To learn more about smart light switches, dimmers and controls, check out Caséta by Lutron.
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