Smart lights are among the most helpful smart devices to enter your increasingly smart homes. Which smart light system will you go for? Philips Hue? Or Lutron Caseta? It would be a very tough decision.
But if you want to use both of them, you may have a question. Will Lutron Caseta switches work with your Philips hue bulbs?
Yes, they are two different brands that produce different products and have different features, but you still can make Lutron Caseta switches work with your Philips Hue bulbs via some tricks. The Lutron Aurora can be paired with Philips Hue smart bulbs to dim them up and down. And you just need to install it in two minutes.
Lutron has been around a really long time in the light switch industry, while Philips has been in the business of smart LED bulbs for a great reputation. Although they are all great but are they work if get them together?
We’ll get into the details more in this article.
Here’s what else we’ll cover:
- How to dim smart bulbs
- 2 ways to make Hue bulbs and Caseta work together
- How Lutron Caseta switches work with Philips Hue
I think this article could help clear up some of the things.
Ready to learn more?
Table of Contents
What is Lutron Caseta?
Caseta is a smart lighting control system that is a good solution to give any user smart lighting control.
While switches are their most famous products, and they also produce smart controls, plugs, as well as even smart window shades. For example, if you are looking for a well-built, rugged outdoor smart plug to control the landscaping lights, you can buy a Lutron plug.
Lutron users its own smart wireless communications protocol that is different from WIFI as well as other home automation signals such as Z-Wave. It is specifically designed to minimize interference with both your WIFI and other smart devices.
You can use their different basic controls to outfit your smart home. There is a broad range of in-wall dimmers and plug-in modules, controllers, and switches in Lutron’s Caseta line, specifically their unique Pico remote controls are great.
You also can open and close their motorized window shades with their smart bridges.
What does Philips Hue do?
Philips Hue is a smart lighting system that enables you to wirelessly control the smart lights of your home. It has positioned itself as its industry leader. It can improve your mood, help you feel safe, wake you up, welcome you home, get you energized, and much more.
Philips Hue provides a range of smart lights accessories and smart lights, and they have been yielding good results in this field. Whether you want modular smart LED strips or smart light bulbs or accessories, you all can get satisfactory products.
Whether you place them outside of inside, Philips Hue will always light up your home. They are energy-efficient lights that you just need to install your Philips Hue Bridge and plug in your smart fixtures, lamps, light strips, light bulbs, or Philips Hue accessories to enjoy bright, colourful, and warm light in your home.
While the competition is becoming more and more fierce, Philips Hue still leads the field. Many of my friends like their products very much and use them day by day.
It will surely make sense that Lutron Caseta and Philips Hue work well together. This may play a greater role by this pairing. But what’s the effect? How can you do better?
Can smart bulbs be dimmed
The light bulb is arguably one of the world’s best inventions of the 19th century, illuminating our home much more easily and transforming the way we live.
Conventional light bulbs work by flipping your switch on and off. You can dim your bulbs by increasing or lowering the power of the electric heading to them. Increasing the switch also increased the power going to your bulbs. This is usually the extent of the functionality of our traditional home lighting.
So smart bulbs don’t work well with your old dimmer switches because the smart bulbs already have dimming capability in them. The wall dimmer and the bulb’s built-in dimmer will interfere, making your bulbs flicker.
The great news is that these built-in dimming capabilities are usually great, with precise, smooth brightness controls that won’t buzz or flicker like you often see with traditional dimming and dumb bulbs.
Smart bulbs can hook up remotely to your intelligent digital home assistants like Google Home and Alexa by a shared WiFi network, as well as receive commands from them.
The important thing to note is that you don’t need switches as long as your lights are getting power and electricity via the electrical socket.
You can turn on and off, changing colors, dimming, brightening via voice commands through your bulb’s remote app or your smart assistants.
Now we are noticing a growing number of smart dimmer switches that are especially designed to pair with our smart bulbs nicely.
But how we will get Hue and Lutron Caseta to work together?
The Problem with Hue bulbs and Caseta Dimmers
In my own experience, there will be some problems if you use them together. You can still turn on and off the Hue bulbs with Caseta dimmer, but please take note of some things.
1,
The actual power and electricity to your Hue bulbs will be cut if you press “off” on the Caseta switch, and You can’t turn your Hue bulb back on with a voice assistant or the Hue app because of the power supply was completely cut off.
2,
The brightness of a bulb depends on both voltage and current. Your Hue bulbs may be damaged if you press the dimming up/down button on your Caseta dimmer since you have changed the voltage to the bulbs, which is not compatible with your smart bulbs.
Don’t worry, there are always solutions to any problem. You can save this problem in 3 ways.
- A software-based solution is a way to make Hue bulb and Caseta work together.
- Caseta switches can help you with your Hue bulbs, it is not a good idea to use a dimmer.
- Have you heard of Lutron Aurora? It is designed to pair with your Philips Hue.
Why? I am going to explain this to you below.
Can Lutron Caseta control Philips Hue?
I believe lots of people want to make Lutron Caseta and Philips Hue work together. In fact, it is not difficult to match them. It all comes down to some tricks to make them work nicely.
1,
The Lutron Aurora is a good solution, which is designed to work with your Hue bulbs. The out-of-the-box solution is great and easy to set up. The Aurora smart dimmer keeps your Philips Hue smart lights in the “always ready” mode by locking toggle light switches in the “on/up” position. Nobody will accidentally turn your switch and turn the smart bulb functionality off, while you can still dim them, or turn them on/off right from the wall.
This dimmer switch can work well with a variety of smart home apps if you want to keep using your Philips Hue gear as well as the classic dimmer switch. It is for you to bridge the gap between them.
2,
Group features – As long as you master some of the most nuanced functions in the smart tech apps, you still can make Lutron Caseta switches and Philips Hue work together.
You can group your devices together into a larger collection by the big smart control apps such as Apple, Google, and Alexa.
When you group them together, things become relatively simple. You don’t need to go through them separately, and you can operate a number of devices at once. For example, once you have the Hue and Lutron devices in your home, you can use the group feature to operate them.
You can control your Hue and Lutron devices together at the same time by grouping them, or you can put your Hue devices in one group and your Lutron devices in another group, then you can give the same commands to each group to control them in tandem.
I have used both Hue and Lutron devices in my bedroom and send similar commands to them by grouping them together. It works very well.
For example, Alexa has two functionalities- Naming and Grouping to control your smart home devices. By putting some items in one group, like a Lutron switch, a pair of Hue bulbs, and a WeMo switch, and naming the group “ My Smart Home”, you can regulate them at once. That’s great.
I like this way to dim my Hue bulbs and it is very easy to set up.
Can You Dim Hue Bulbs with Lutron Caseta?
Yes, you can dim your hue bulbs with Lutron Caseta.
Lutron Aurora can be a wall dimmer to dim your Hue Bulbs up and down. It will not damage your Hue bulbs like accidentally burning your bulbs out. You can use them safely.
The Lutron App for Caseta is the perfect foundation for creating a connected home system. Monitor and control your Hue lights such as dim them and turn them on and off, and even temperature and shades from anywhere, so you can easily be in touch with your home.
You also can use Lutron switches to control your Hue bulbs: On and Off.
Do Lutron Caseta switches work with Philips Hue?
Definitely Yes, I have covered it above, You can use Caseta Switch to turn On/Off your Hue bulbs.
You can turn regular light bulbs On/Off with the Lutron Caseta Switches, but the Hue bulbs will always be “on”.
In order to respond to the commands from your device or app, the smart light bulbs will always be “on” even if they don’t have any light. Your smart bulbs can hook up remotely to your app and devices to respond to the commands. But if the bulb’s power is cut, your Hue bulb can’t respond the commands from any devices and it will always stay dark until the power is “On”.
You surely can toggle the power to the Hue bulbs with the Lutron Cseta switch’s On/Off features. However, it maybe has some things you should know.
Do you know power cycling? You still power cycling the Hue bulbs even if you turn your Caseta switch off. Usually, the power cycle very reliably fixes some minor problems such as a failed sync. If you have this problem, I always recommend do that first?
It will disconnect your bulbs from the local Hue bridge when you turn your cut the power, and your lights will be turned off. But It will take a second to reconnect if you resupply the power, and they can’t respond the commands from your devices when power is cut.
I believe I have made it very clear and you should know how it works, but I will cover some more information.
Is Caseta Part of the Friends of Hue program?
Philips lighting is expanding its Friends of Hue program. Just as all other Philips Hue products, its Friends of Hue luminaires enable users to adapt and control their lighting to suit every moment by motion or voice command.
There is a “Friends of Hue” program logo on the device if the device supports working with the Hue system. Lutron, Amazon, Apple, and many more get “Friends of Hue” support and this usually means almost everyone can use it well.
While they join the “Friends of Hue” program, but it doesn’t mean all of their products are 100% compatible with the Philips Hue. Lutron has produced a wide range of products but only the Aurora dimmer switch is designed to work with the Hue environment seamlessly, and other products may not work well with it.
Now you know Lutron only has a dimmer switch work with the Hue system, and if you have used them together, you will know they work very well at the same time in your smart home. I hope Lutron will develop more products to work with the Hue environment, this will be very useful for us.
I believe you have learned how to make Lutron Caseta switches and your Philips Hue work well together. If you know any other methods to make them mesh, you can email me. I will add it to this article.
Anyway, I hope this article can simplify and enhance your home and life.