I have an older home with no neutrals in most of the wall switches. Now that Lutron can be tied into Smartthings I was thinking of taking advantage of the HD Deal of the Day. However, I just read that the switches are supposed to be within 30ft of the bridge. I have a three story house (not including the basement). Currently my internet comes into the house on the 1st floor which is where my router and all my hubs are located. I am worried that the distance between the hub and some of the upper story switches may be too far for the system. I was curious to know how far other people have been able to successfully place their switches from the hub?
You can use one Lutron plug-in pocket socket as a range extender, but that will only get you another 30 feet. That would typically be enough for most three-story buildings as long as the smart bridge was located centrally.
Thanks for the ideas. I had thought about those two solutions before you mentioned them and of the two suggestions, I think the Lutron plug-in pocket socket would work best given my house layout. I really didn’t want to have to buy another item just to make the system work, especially when I already have bought more Iris plugin modules that I need on a daily basis. An AP would allow me to move the hub, but if I move it up a floor I would possibly lose connectivity in the basement.
I had seen one person on the slickdeals forum say they had a few switches that were placed 45ft away from the bridge that were connecting okay and was hoping that someone here may have experienced similar success.
As with all radiofrequency devices, it depends very much on local architecture.
The Lutron proprietary frequency is lower even then Z wave, which is a plus in this case, but there are still issues of water pipes in walls, cement, large metal objects, etc which can block signal. So it’s just really hard to predict for anyone location what the transmission distances will be. You pretty much just have to try it and see.
That is probably what I will end up doing. I know there have been many times where this community has been very useful in discussing their setups/environments and thought maybe it could give me some insight before I pulled the trigger (i.e. “I was able to get 45ft but is was mostly a clear line of sight” or “I have plaster walls and so I was only able to go about 20ft away”).
FWIW, I get about 40 feet to one Switch with mine, but our house is in a C shape and that’s going through through two clear glass patio doors, which should be pretty easy. It’s certainly not something I would count on, I had intended to put a repeater in but hadn’t gotten around to it before I realized the switch was working anyway.
Lutron’s ClearConnect has a very good range and I wouldn’t be surprised you wouldn’t need anything.
The other option you might want to consider is an Ethernet powerline adapter, locate the Lutron bridge in a central location and no need for extenders or running long cables. This is what I use in my house where I don’t feel like fishing cables to the walls for my SmartThings setup. My internet comes in at the basement and I have ST in a more central location. I have never had an issue with these: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AWRUICG/ref=twister_B01I6U1QMQ?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
