Hub won't reach garage - options?

Hello. I have installed a few caseta dimmers for a client, but can't get the signal to reach the caseta switches in the detached garage (about 30' from the house). I have tried a lamp dimmer installed in the back corner of the house as a repeater, but it doesn't communicate with the garage switches. Is the (backordered) repeater better at extending the signal than the lamp dimmer? Any other options that don't require splitting the setup in two? I don't understand why they didn't include an ethernet port on the repeater to extend the system without relying on wireless bridging.

Thanks,

Mark.

Hello Mark. The Caseta repeater (PD-REP-WH) can go up to 60' away from the bridge and will provide it's own 30' in each direction coverage sphere. This would be the best option for getting all of the devices on the same system.

Thanks for the quick reply Kyle. Does the repeater have a better range than the lamp dimmer (as a repeater)? I don't think the repeater installed in the garage will reach the hub installed (centrally) in the basement of the house. I have attempted to use the lamp dimmer installed as close to the garage as possible in the house as a repeater, but it doesn't reach the dimmers in the garage. Will a repeater in the garage have better range than a dimmer in the garage trying to reach the lamp dimmer (as a repeater) in the house?

Thanks!

Mark

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Originally Posted by Kyle L.

Hello Mark. The Caseta repeater (PD-REP-WH) can go up to 60' away from the bridge and will provide it's own 30' in each direction coverage sphere. This would be the best option for getting all of the devices on the same system.

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Yes, the Caseta repeater does have a better range than the lamp dimmer. The repeater can go up to 60' from the main bridge, while the lamp dimmer must fall within 30' of either the bridge or repeater. The lamp dimmer also only broadcasts a 15' in each direction signal while the repeater broadcasts 30' in each direction. Here is a snippet from our support page which illustrates the coverage ranges for each of these devices.https://lutron.secure.force.com/publ...EM3c000003uXU3

I'd be curious to know if a PICO paired to the switches in question will work from the house completely independant of the app or repeater. If not, I would start walking away from the garage with the PICO to figure out where the link breaks down. I was outside last night and was able to get 150 feet of range from a PICO to an outdoor mounted switch...I would have gone further but I would have needed a canoe.
The repeater doesn't have Ethernet because it is just like any of the other devices. You just put it where you want it and pair it with the app. From there you can keep relocating it until you get the results you desire.

The repeater is a better option. Keep in mind, the repeater will only get you to the garage. You may need to add the lamp dimmer in the garage as a repeater.

Moving the lamp dimmer/repeater around may help. Higher is generally better. Moving it to the 2nd floor may help. The room next door may not be the closest but it might work. RF is weird. No canoe required!

I've been dealing with this same situation. My detached garage is more than 60' from the house, and I have another garage beside it that I need to connect as well. So, for the best chance of connectivity, you'd need to put the hub at the rear of your house rather than a central location (making it less efficient and possibly leaving blackout spots in your house if the house is large), and put the repeater at the front of the garage (closest to the house). Just want to point out to Lutron that you guys need to make a wired repeater, like a second AP for WiFi; mesh/repeaters are trash in WiFi and not much better in this situation.

Here is my experience, which would not make me comfortable if I were installing this for someone else as a contract, but it works for me so far:

When I put my first Lutron dimmer in the garage, I was delighted that it paired with the bridge in my basement right away. I built my garage with conduits leaking out of it underground everywhere so I can install all sorts of accent lighting and stuff around the yard without making penetrations in any of my foundations or uglying-up the sides of any buildings. I did notice at the time that I could not pair that device's associated Pico with the bridge from the same distance away, so I do believe the Picos have less range. That Pico was to be used as a remote from the house anyway, so once I took it in the house to pair it, it hasn't given me any trouble. ...This will NOT do for the remotes I would like to have in the cars at some point.

Then I go to install my next dimmer in the garage and it won't pair. Simply hangs up every time I try. So I just switched it with the unit I already paired and that unit continues to work at the new location (I was still splitting up my light circuits in the garage at that point anyway). And for the record, the Lutron app always tells me that this paired dimmer in the garage isn't responding, but it responds just fine - I even have it on a schedule and it has worked flawlessly so far (I do have two instances of turning it off scheduled, just in case the first one doesn't quite work). The total responsiveness seems to be about 95%, but I'd still like to get it perfect...I mean, truly perfect.

So what you can do - and what I will likely do for my other lights until Lutron makes an Ethernet repeater - is hook the switches up in the house to pair them and get them working, and then take them out and transplant them in the garage. It seems that at that point you're operating under "best effort" (think UDP as opposed to TCP), but it still works much better than the 30' advertised.

I'm still researching how wonky it's going to be if I have to install a second bridge, and if that's going to annoy me more than knowing my current bridge doesn't feel confident with the connectivity of my garage devices. But if Lutron just made a wired repeater, that would be the perfect solution and we wouldn't even be having this discussion. This is a great system, Lutron, why not perfect it?