New Guy With 2 Basic Questions

Hi, I'm Chuck43 (name is Chuck and I was born in 1943) I’m ready to hit the buy button on the Lutron Caseta wireless smart lighting starter kit but I have a couple of questions before actually doing it. I hope to control the entire house using Alexa, this will make life easier for a handicapped grandchild.

1. Will the smart bridge work with a AT&T Uverse router?

2. My entire house is now wired with 22 Lutron Maestro switches and all my fixtures have Cree LED’s, will the Cree’s present a problem?

Being retired I can't really afford to be investing in a system that isn't going to work so I figured it's better to ask before buying, thank you.

1. Yes. The bridge needs to see the Internet. If you have managed switch/router attached to the Uverse router you may need to put the Uverse in bridge mode. If this is the case, it probably has already been done.

2. There are 4 basic Caseta dimmers - C/L, neutral, electronic/revers phase, and plug-in. The neutral and plug-in (which has a neutral) will give the best results. You can check your bulbs at lutron.com/led.

If you have a lot of LEDs it would be a good investment to buy 1 dimmer and try it in various locations.

Thank you for your reply, a morning run to Home Depot produced a starter kit with the smart bridge and 2 wall dimmers. Installing the bridge was simple plug and play and the switches went in effortlessly. Everything is running as it should and I'm out the door to pick up 2 more switches.

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Originally Posted by Chuck43

Thank you for your reply, a morning run to Home Depot produced a starter kit with the smart bridge and 2 wall dimmers. Installing the bridge was simple plug and play and the switches went in effortlessly. Everything is running as it should and I'm out the door to pick up 2 more switches.

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After installing the Caseta, Say; "Alexa, Discover my Smart Home Devices"
"Alexa, turn (named dimmer) on"
The commands should go in order; Alexa - turn (Device Name) - on/ off

Sometimes if you don't do it in that order, Alexa is confused.
Experiment with Scenes and Schedules. You'll like the system and ease of use.

Thank you for the suggestion 3D Design, I have the switches working with Alexa but have to figure out how to get them to work as a group. I like being able to turn them on and off individually but would like to be able to turn them all on or off with one command at times like when leaving a room.

I've just installed Caseta in my home replacing an old X10 system.

Grouping lights together for voice commands is done two ways.

1. Create a scene in the Lutron app and activate them with, "Alexa, Turn On [scene name]"

2. Group lights together in the ALEXA app under Menu > Smart Home > Groups.

Option 2 is interesting as you can associate an alexa device with a group so saying "Alexa, lights on" will activate the group of lights in that room. The same command on a different alexa device in a different room would activate different lights.

Before you spend too much at Home Depot, you can get the Caseta devices cheaper elsewhere. I bought most of my dimmers on Ebay. You just have to watch for good deals. (Picked up a six-pack of wall dimmers for $29.99 each shipped). Found that the dimmer+pico was often the best deal (but not always). Also have picked up some of the devices on Amazon (Pico wall adapters and some picos). Picked up a couple of scene picos (Bright/Entertain/Relax/Off) from www.mrsupply.com for $35ea + shipping. The price on some of the items can vary significantly.

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Originally Posted by Chuck43

Thank you for the suggestion 3D Design, I have the switches working with Alexa but have to figure out how to get them to work as a group. I like being able to turn them on and off individually but would like to be able to turn them all on or off with one command at times like when leaving a room.

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As Larry suggested, create a Scene, Choose the dimmers and set the level of brightness, then name the scene. For Groups in the Alexa App, I like "All lights off".

Thanks for the Ebay suggestion Larry, I don't know why I didn't think of that earlier.

Forgive me, at 75 I'm technology challenged, what's the difference between "Groups" and a "Scene"?

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Originally Posted by Chuck43

Forgive me, at 75 I'm technology challenged, what's the difference between "Groups" and a "Scene"?

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Both the Lutron app and Alexa app allow you to create scenes. A scene sets any number of devices to pre-defined states (on/off/xx%).

Lets says your living room has three controlled lights; "Fan light", "recessed lights", and a floor "lamp". Each device can be individually controlled via voice control.

"Alexa, turn on the fan light"
"Alexa, recessed lights 50%"

You can create named scenes that set each light to a specific state via the app or voice control.

"Alexa, turn on Entertain"
"Alexa, turn on Goodnight"


The Alexa app also allows you to create named groups. A named group responds to voice commands as though it were a single device though you don't have pre-determined states. It's just a shortcut to refer to multiple devices by a single name.

If you create a group called "living room lights" you can then use that group name with any of the applicable voice commands and the entire group will respond.

"Alexa, turn on living room lights"
"Alexa, living room lights 50%"
"Alexa, turn off living room lights"


You can associate specific Alexa devices with a group. This is giving Alexa context; telling her which lights are in the same room as a particular Echo device. This allows you to simple say, "Alexa, lights [on/off/xx%]" and have the lights associated with that Echo respond without being named. i.e. my Echo Dot in the kitchen and is grouped with the two kitchen lighting circuits. I can walk into the kitchen and say "Alexa, lights on" and the kitchen lights respond.


I'm still playing around with this trying the find a naming convention that is versatile, consistent, and intuitive. A person shouldn't have to study a 'cheat sheet' to figure out what voice command is needed for what they want to do--or at least that's my goal...