The Lutron Smart Bridge offers a DIY connected home option. Sarah Tew/CNET
Having a smart connected home sure sounds like a nifty idea. Not everyone, however, has the money or desire to pay a professional installer to create it for them. Recognizing this fact, veteran lighting and electrical switch firm Lutron suggests you try its Smart Bridge gadget. For $149, this unassuming little white box links the company's intelligent lights, motorized window shades, and Honeywell Wi-Fi thermostats together into one brainy household network. And as part of the Lutron Caseta Wireless System, with everything installed users can command their heating, lights, and other fixtures via iOS and Android mobile apps.
Features
So what can the Lutron Smart Bridge really accomplish? On the surface it appears like quite a lot. Essentially the box-style machine plugs into a free port on your home network router using an Ethernet cable. It then scans the immediate area, basically within Wi-Fi reach, for compatible smart home devices. These include Lutron-branded Caseta light switches, Serena motorized window shades, and even third party Wi-Fi thermostats built by Honeywell.
Lutron envisions the Smart Bridge to serve as the hub of its Caseta Wireless System which enables a wide range of automated household functions. You can say have the lights in any given room dim or brighten depending on the time of day. Now imagine this action paired with shades lowering (as the lights ramp up) at night or the opposite happening in the morning.
Control Lutron smart home products through the mobile app. Sarah Tew/CNET
Likewise users can create custom themes revolving around homebound activities such as "movie", "relax", or "dinner party" and you begin to see some of the Lutron system's appeal. I certainly do, especially when my window shades raise and lower like in some sort of superhero/villain hideaway.
To fully command the Caseta smart home solution, users navigate companion iOS and Android mobile applications. Not only does this allow for control of their home ambiance via iPads, iPhones, along with Android smartphones and tablets from anywhere with an Internet connection. It also powers useful abilities such as automatically shutting down lights, lowing shades, and cranking down the thermostat when the system detects the house is empty for extended periods. According to Lutron, the Smart Bridge manages this task by keeping tabs on the relative distance of registered smartphones (within a virtual GPS fence you design) and thanks to technology courtesy of Alarm.com.
Command motorized window shades with app or remote. Sarah Tew/CNET
Additionally you can simply adjust lights and shades manually with the small Pico Remote which is also part of the Caseta Wireless System. Of course Lutron made sure to point out that its light switches operate like oldschool ones as well meaning you can turn them on and off with that most versatile of tools, the human hand.
Outlook
I admit the Lutron Smart Bridge and Caseta Wireless System as a whole seems pretty compelling. The solution also appeared to function responsively and glitch-free when I tried it out personally, though I confess I did so in the controlled environs of the Lutron corporate offices in New York. How the gizmo operates in the wilds of a real home is another story altogether.
And there are some concerns I have already with the Smart Bridge. The biggest is its ability to support third party smart home products and platforms. A growing number of connected home hubs including the affordable $99 Staples Connect and pricey $299 Revolv designed to gather a great many intelligent home appliances under its wing. Indeed the Revolv promises compatibility for up to "95 percent" of devices.
While Lutron has said the Smart Bridge will operate with a wide range of smart products (virtually anything that links to Wi-Fi) at some point in the future, it hasn't spelled out exactly when this will happen.
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