Lutron Caseta Dimmer Switch (review)

I wanted to start with why I purchased this switch for use with HomeKit instead of any other brand of switch. We live in an old house and there weren’t many (any maybe?) in-wall dimmer switches that work without a neutral wire. I would have had to have some electrical work done to go with most other brands that require a neutral, and that’s not an option, so the Lutron Caseta is perfect for us that respect.

Lutron Dimmer Switch next to standard rocker switch

The packaging came in a blister-pack with instructions, and the particular version I got came with a dimmer remote included.  If you already have an empty gang, you can also buy this model without either the remote or the faceplate. In this case I just went ahead and got them all together even though I ended up putting it in with another standard switch.

Switch in blister packaging

Once you have it installed in your wall, you pair it with the app by pressing and holding down the off button (bottom one) until the LEDs on the switch flash blue. You then tell the app to look for the device itself. The app will find the device and ask you to give it a room name or location, and then a ‘switch name’. I put this particular one in the kitchen, so it looks like this in the app:

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It works very much like you would think it would. I did accidentally put a non dimming bulb in it at first, and if you do that you may think it’s not working because it won’t power up the LEDs on the switch at all. Be careful, or you will be left with the mistaken impression that you have a faulty switch. I had one dimmer bulb in one of the rooms malfunction, making me think the same thing. Always test with multiple kinds and types of bulbs before you resort to uninstalling the switch out from the wall.

Note that Philips hue bulbs do not work with this dimmer (as with all non Hue Dimmer switches). I tested that just to be thorough.

We specifically bought this dimmer for use with non Hue bulbs for cost efficiency and/or due to the style of the rooms/spaces they occupy.  I knew, for example, that I didn’t want color changing bulbs for this style of lamp in the kitchen.

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One cool  feature that this dimmer does have is that when you tell it turn off the lights, it turns them off as if it was an interrupter. Unlike it’s table lamp dimmer equivalent, which while looking almost exactly the same in the app (like a dimmer/interrupter), it never fully cuts the power. Case in point these lamp bulbs will never be fully off.

On a day-to-day level they never go down or give the dreaded ‘no response’ message. Here is how they appear in Apple’s Home app.

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They behave well  with voice commands and even though I haven’t used them with Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa, everyone in the relevant communities I’ve talked to have said they are ‘rock solid’ with just about every other home automation platform.