Originally Posted by
SparkyCoog
Yeah since Lutron bought Ketra, there really seems to be a disconnect between the installers who are out there on the field dealing with customers and their concerns and what Lutron thinks the customers need. Lutron's actions remind me of how Steve Jobs would act but Lutron is not the only game in town now and as far as luxury home/rich people market goes, Control 4 & Crestron dealers who already have the ear of the builders and homeowners with AV stuff are already jumping in to take lighting away too. Lutron is playing a dangerous game here of trying to bully rich people into replacing their entire system to QSX by not offering legacy support. It will backfire not just for them, but for electrical contractors like us who don't do AV and are constantly getting pushed out of doing lighting by AV companies. It puts us at a disadvantage when someone wants to upgrade their Series 8 system or QS system with RPMs. They'll get our Lutron quote to replace all the RPMs, keypads, processor, etc. then the AV guy comes along and offers the the Control 4 equivalent and packages it in with their touch screens, video distribution etc. and boom...we lost. On the other hand, if we tell them "you can use a lot of your existing equipment but you'll get all the benefits of the newest Lutron system and as time goes by, we'll upgrade the rest", we'll have the advantage.
The only thing I feel Lutron is actually doing right is with Caseta, but that's a younger, not as rich customer base who do their own research. Homeworks is completely out of touch right now. They really need to get out of their bubble.