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Thread: Oh boy, yet ANOTHER system.

  1. #1
    Senior Member
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    Oh boy, yet ANOTHER system.

    Is it me or is ClearConnect starting to turn into the pathwork nightmare that later stage Radio Ra classic turned into? I mean Radio Ra was a nice simple system but then they kept adding and adding to it - Chronos, timers, RS232, etc. and it got to the point where you couldn't make sense of it without an hour of research.

    Now comes Vive that has dimmers that LOOK like Caseta but don't act like Caseta. It has some devices that work with Caseta, RA2, or QS standalone but not as part of the whole system.

    Do we really need these many systems? Why can't you just improve QS? You already had Grafik Eyes and Maestro RF that can do a lot of the standalone features for those on a budget.

  2. #2
    Vive is targeted at commercial markets, where the sales channels and methods of implementation, as well as project goals, are very different than Caseta, or RadioRA 2.

    You are right some devices like Picos are compatible with both.

    Think of Vive more like a mini wireless Quantum system, that is easy to implement in commercial office space.
    Phil Scheetz
    Lighting Control Solutions
    pscheetz@lightingcontrolsolutions.com

  3. #3
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    I did go the training pages on LCIonline and saw how it's setup and it seems like a scalable, non-cloud based Caseta where it's programmed via the app and I guess if that's all you ever expect from the system you're fine; however, in real world situations, it's going to be a tangled mess if ever one wants to add something else or they'd have to toss the whole system.

    Suppose you invest in a Vive system for your two story office building - fancy dimmers, the hub (whatever they call it), motion sensors, daylight sensors etc. and you find out your conference rooms really need 5 button keypads by the door and by the podium to have different scenes for presentations and you find out you can't. You're stuck with the system you have and the only solution is to get a handful of picos . Or maybe you want to integrate with other systems and want to use a connect bridge. Again, you can't and there is no upgrade path from Vive to QS.

    I know it's commercial so people are less likely to do that but it puts a lot of pressure from the start to pick a system that can have longevity and if your needs change, it will be a very expensive lesson.

    In the resi world, I've already heard of people maxing out their Caseta systems because they bought into the system and they have no way to convert it to Ra2 without throwing money away on their current investment and I'm afraid the same thing is going to happen with Vive. Or worse, nobody uses it and it turns into AuroRa.

  4. #4
    Senior Member
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    All 4 of AuroRa devices rocked

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  6. #5
    Its pretty simple actually. All you have to do is, for the moment, believe that there is good reason to separate the commercial and residential vertical markets. Once you do that, and look at the systems within a vertical market, it's pretty straightforward good better best.
    Resi : caseta, RA2, HWQS
    Commercial: Standalone Vive, Vive+Hub, Standalone QS, Quantum

    Now if you really want to go down the road of comparing Caseta to Vive:

    Caseta: homeowner manual event driven system with gimmicks like geo-fencing, pretty apps, tie in to smart home, and third-party systems like tv clickers. No sensors, no sophisticated computer networks with vlans and vpns.

    Vive: motion and daylight sensor centric, for code compliance. BACnet for building integration instead of Wink, smart things, HomeKit. Vive is not app based, but web-browser based, and setup is geared for commercial installations and set and forget attitudes. Tuning of the lighting is possible and easy for energy savings. Vive is built around energy savings and corporate IT. No IoT cloud-based privacy concerns as it is easy to lock down. You want remote access with Vive? Do it the professional way with VPN. The hardware is also much more focused on commercial lighting, with heavy loads and relay packs and more capacity and range. This makes a big impact on the cost comparison. There are lots of differences, and I probably missed a bunch. oh emergency lighting... while not currently part of Vive, do you think that there is even a chance that Caseta will support emergency lighting?

    dont mix residential and commercial in the same bucket.

    oh and Vive is not Quantum lite. It is TriPak Plus.

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  8. #6
    TriPak Plus is a good way to describe it.
    Phil Scheetz
    Lighting Control Solutions
    pscheetz@lightingcontrolsolutions.com

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  10. #7
    Junior Member
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    As a consumer, the Lutron market is very confusing and difficult to navigate. The materials found on Lutron's website do not give explicit detail on which switches are meant for commercial versus residential. I like the fact that the switches look the same across all markets but I hate the fact that the packaging is IDENTICAL. They need to incorporate something on the packaging that explicitly states the Vive system is meant for commercial use.

    That said, I have the Vive system installed in my home. It works great! Kind of... I dislike the fact that I have spent money on a system that does not have the same features as the others in the residential product line. I would not have purchased the Vive system knowing this. I would have purchased the RadioRA2 system that I had intended on. Unfortunately, the electrician had installed 12 of the Vive switches before realizing they wouldn't work with the RadioRa2 system. All of this could have been avoided if the product was marketed better (and if my electrician would have been more familiar with the product line...)

    Cheers,

    Joe

  11. #8
    Senior Member
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    I'm mildly irritated because the RF electrical receptacles in Vive would be quite welcome in HWQS or RA2. Plug-in dimmers are a little ugly and hard to hide. The prewire crew rarely details regarding lamp outlets in time to rough wire appropriately. A half-dimmed RF receptacle wouldn't be a brand new market for Lutron but it's on my wish list.

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