By Darryl Wilkinson • Posted: Oct 7, 2011

Price: $17,000 as tested At A Glance: Control one to 200 devices • No new wires for easy retrofits • Saves electricity and lengthens bulb life, High cost, Lutron RadioRA 2, home automation, lighting control, Simply Automated UPB low cost alternative
Unless you’re one of the enlightened, you probably use the same simple lighting-control system that most everyone else in the electrified world uses—your finger. Sometimes it’s the side of your hand, or when your hands are full, a nudge with your elbow or shoulder. While the electrical hardware is reliable, this type of system is prone to user error (forgetfulness), doesn’t react quickly to changing circumstances (daytime/nighttime), and is often just damned inconvenient (you’re here, but the switch is over there). On top of all that, gangs of three, four, or more switches on the wall, no matter how fancy the wall plate, are unsightly and not especially intuitive to use when it comes to flipping the right switch to turn on the right light—especially in the dark.

A Good Oompa-Loompa Is Hard to Find
Over the years, I’ve tried to cobble together a next-generation, how-did-I-live-without-it, lookma-no-hands, modern-day lighting-control system (LCS) to replace the old Wilkinson Finger-Flipping Lighting Control System (WFFLCS). At various times, it’s included a hodgepodge of motion-sensing light switches, motion-sensing light-socket inserts, screw-in daylight sensors, X10 light switches and motion sensors, plug-in slide-control lamp dimmers, Z-Wave-enabled dimmers, Sharper Image motion- and sound-sensing light switches, ZigBee-enabled dimmers and switches, in-wall dimmers with built-in IR receivers, and more. There were desperate days when I started to think that my next attempt might have to involve helper monkeys or Oompa-Loompas. (Both of which are problematic. The former are poo throwers; the latter sing too much.) It certainly looked like I would forever be giving the lights in my house the finger.

The folks at Lutron boldly told me that the RadioRA 2 wireless lighting-control system was the very thing I’ve been looking for. So, over the last several months, my son and I have replaced every single light switch in my half-old/half-new, electronic-gremlin-haunted, electrician’s nightmare of a house with Lutron RadioRA 2 wireless switchers, dimmers, and keypads. Well, they’re not totally wireless; most of them have to be connected to the AC wiring in the house in order to turn lights on and off. (Duh.) The components themselves, though, communicate wirelessly using a proprietary RF protocol called Clear Connect. This made the hardware installation a (relative) breeze since I didn’t have to run any new electrical wiring. But since my house has been a signal-sucking deathtrap for lots of wireless thingamabobs and gizmawidgets, only time would tell whether the RadioRA 2 system would live up to its billing. But first, an educational interlude…

A Switch Is a Switch, but a Dimmer Is Divine
Talking about lighting control, whether it’s for one room or the whole house, is a little like talking to your kids about a subject during which the conversation at some point includes, “You’ll understand when you’re older.” It’s maddeningly difficult to convey to someone who’s never lived with an LCS the full magic, convenience, usefulness, safety, and even romance (you’ll understand when you’re older) that a well-designed and properly functioning lighting control system can create in a home. It’s impossible to do with photographs, and video can’t do justice to the way lighting control can change a room’s overall look, mood, and spaciousness. I’ve seen demonstrations of lighting-control systems cleverly wired into doll houses (by tiny installers, I suspect). But, unless you’re Barbie and Ken, you might as well be sitting on one of those coinoperated mechanical pony rides outside Kmart and trying to imagine you’re straddling Secretariat at the Belmont Stakes.

Let’s start this way. Consider a single light controlled by a switch with a built-in motion detector (in other words, an occupancy sensor). Long ago, I started installing these ultra-basic automated switches in closets, bathrooms, and the kitchen because these were the areas in which the lights were most likely to be left on. My initial motivation was to save money on electricity. But a funny thing happened on the way to the kitchen table with the checkbook and the utility bill. My family no longer had to touch, or even think about touching a switch when we walked into these rooms. At first, that was flat-out flippin’ awesome; but it’s even more amazing how little time it took for everyone to start asking, “What’s wrong with the lights?” as we walked into the dark, non-sensor-controlled rooms. This is the way nature intended indoor living to be, especially when the hallway light comes on as you’re carrying in groceries at night. Occupancy sensors are like having a third hand that you never have to wash or manicure.

But switches, automatic or not, give you only two choices: on and off. Dimmers provide every level in between, and in addition to their parsimoniousness, they’re great for rooms with varying light level needs. For example, my master bathroom has something like two thousand bulbs on each side of the mirror. Somebody thought this would look cool—and it does, if you’re wearing welding glasses and plenty of sunscreen. My initial solution was to unscrew every other bulb (cheap but not too attractive). But then the lights weren’t bright enough for shaving or putting on makeup. So, we could 1) forgo personal hygiene; 2) spend half the morning screwing and unscrewing bulbs; 3) remodel; or 4) install a dimmer that allowed us to vary the level of light depending on the task. In this case, I didn’t give a rat’s hindquarters about saving money on my electric bill. One simple dimmer magically created a new bathroom that always has the right amount of light.

Out of One Room, Many
If a single dimmer can have such a dramatic effect on a bathroom, imagine what can be done with dimmers on multiple lights in rooms where you do more than sit, shower, and shave. For example, my theater room currently has two independently switched sets of sconces and a torchiere lamp plugged into an outlet near the couch. (Lights plugged into separate outlets or controlled by different switches/dimmers are called zones in lighting-control parlance.) We eat dinner in the theater room. We play board games. Every now and then, I read on the couch in the evening (unless the absinthe bottle has been uncorked). So, even though we call it our theater room, it’s really our dining/movie/game/reading/exercise/sleeping on the couch because I’ve got the flu room. (But theater room is so much easier to say.)

With the old WFFLCS, we manually turned lights on and off to fit the activity—in essence, a crude way of creating several room environments out of one. Using dimmers to control the zones, though, provided a near infinite range of possible lighting scenes. For dinner and The Daily Show, for example, the front sconces went to 30-percent brightness with the rears at 45 percent. Movies looked better with 15 percent front and 25 percent rear (with some minor level tweaking for comedies, dramas, and flicks with chain saws and severed body parts). Games got 80 percent all the way around, and for reading, the front sconces didn’t need to be on at all. But while the multiple dimmers could make the room look perfect for each situation, we hadn’t achieved lighting nirvana yet. Unless you’re Stretch Armstrong, manually operated dimmers still take some forethought and a forefinger to get the lighting right before your butt hits the couch.

Wireless Wish Fulfilament

What I wanted was a lighting-control system that could reliably communicate with the various switchers and dimmers around the house; let me control one, two, or all of them when I wanted to; and, especially, take control of those devices when I didn’t want to (or forgot). And I didn’t want to do any major modifications to the house’s wiring. What could be so difficult about that? Well, according to the Lutron marketing materials, the RadioRA 2 system was designed specifically for me—or at least people in situations similar to mine.

Like any sophisticated automation system, there are two basic aspects of the RadioRA 2 system: the hardware and the software to control it. Hardware-wise, the RadioRA 2 system starts with a Main Repeater ($499), which is basically a central hub that communicates with all the other devices (things like dimmers and switches) and tells each of them what to do and when. Devices in the system must be located within 30 feet of a Repeater, and you can use one or more Auxiliary Repeaters to extend the system’s range in sprawling homes or ones with detached garages, spacious pools and patios, or chicken coops. (My system needed one Auxiliary Repeater along with the Main Repeater for proper coverage.) RadioRA 2 systems are limited to 100 devices, but you can add a second Main Repeater to increase the total to 200. The repeaters are small—not much larger than a paperback book—and are usually installed in out-of-the-way places, such as under stairs or in closets. They pretty much never need to be touched by the homeowner’s hands. Although technically it doesn’t have to be, it’s best if the Main Repeater is connected via its Ethernet port to your home network. (There’s no built-in Wi-Fi.) This makes downloading the programming and future updates easier for the installer, but it’s also necessary if you want to use Lutron’s iPad/iPod or Android apps to control the system. (And you will want to.)

RadioRA 2 Wireless Dimmers and Switches ($149 to $199) replace your existing light switches and typically make up the majority of the devices in the system. To the world, they look like standard Decora-style dimmers/switches. They can function that way, too, because even in the unlikely event that the Main Repeater gets destroyed in a freak plumbing accident or is swallowed by a spontaneously erupting miniature wormhole, you can still dim the attached lights or switch them on or off. (Your homeowner’s insurance may not cover wormhole damage, however.) Plug-in Dimmers, like the one I use with the torchiere lamp in my theater room, also communicate wirelessly with the system.
Pressing Engagements
Along with dimmers and switches, there are several types of RadioRA Keypads ($299 to $399), which get distributed around your home to control your lighting. Some fit standard one-gang electrical boxes, and would replace an existing manual switch. Tabletop keypads (in 5-, 10-, and 15-button versions $399 to $499) habitate your coffee tables and nightstands. And compact Pico wireless controls ($98) can be used wherever limited control is desired. Individual buttons on any of the keypads can be programmed to control a single light, multiple lights in one room, pathways that include lights in multiple rooms and hallways, or even every single light in the entire house.

The Hybrid seeTouch sixbutton keypad is perfect for a variety of applications because it’s both a single-zone dimmer and a programmable six-button keypad. For example, I use a seeTouch keypad in the downstairs bathroom to control the lights (and exhaust fan) in that one room. The built-in dimmer controls the light above the tub, while another button turns on the mirror lights for shaving. The rest of the buttons are programmed to create specific lighting scenes—the aspect of an LCS that has the effect of creating many rooms out of one. One button dims the main overhead light and the tub lights while turning off everything else, including the exhaust fan, for a relaxing atmosphere when soaking in the tub. Another button turns on every light at full blast and fires up the fan for that one day a year when I clean the bathroom. The bottom button turns everything off.

Other Hybrid keypads in the house are programmed to control more than just the lights in one room. For instance, buttons on the bedroom keypad control the ceiling-fan light, as well as the fan, while another button opens and closes the garage door. A fourth controls the exterior deck lights, while a button labeled Panic can turn on every light in the house in the middle of the night. On each of the Hybrid keypads that replaced the existing light switches at the exterior doors, I’ve programmed a Goodbye button that turns off every light and fan in the house. Both keypads also have Vacation buttons that tell the system to follow preprogrammed commands and turn various lights on or off in a semi-random pattern in order to make it look like we’re still at home.

The tabletop keypads work similarly, except that they’re portable and don’t have a built-in dimmer. I have a 15-button keypad in the master bedroom that controls more lights and creates more scenes than the Hybrid keypad in the wall does, as well as a 10-button keypad in the theater room. Both the in-wall and tabletop keypads have adjustable backlighting and can indicate with a subtle LED whether specific lights are on or off, a feature that’s extremely handy in the middle of the night. About the only part of the entire RadioRA 2 system I’ve found to complain about is the plain, probably-looked-cool-when-ABBA-first-became-popular styling of these keypads. Truthfully, the only reason this is even an issue is because everything else in the system (including the wall plates, dimmers, and switches that are available in umpteen billion different colors and finishes) looks so darn good.

The Pico wireless control is a snazzy little remote that can be used handheld, in a tabletop mount, or mounted on the wall as if it were a built-in keypad. It’s a simple remote for turning on/off or dimming one or more lights and has a circular button in the center that can be programmed to bring a single light to a preset level or a group of lights to individual preset levels. We use them in the kids’ bedrooms, on the nightstand in the master bedroom, and on the wall by the tub in the downstairs bathroom—places where a full-blown tabletop keypad would have been overkill.

A Grafik Illustration
Lutron’s Grafik Eye QS ($1,200) is a wide, rectangular control panel. It’s unique because it can operate as a part of the overall RadioRA 2 system or can be used independently as a standalone system to control a single room—such as a theater room. That’s where the Grafik Eye QS in my system is located, although it’s integrated into the larger RadioRA 2 system. My Grafik Eye QS takes the place of six separate dimmers. At the moment, it controls the current three sets of lights, but it’s ready to control the star ceiling I’m about to install. The Grafik Eye QS is the one component in the RadioRA 2 family that might not work in all retrofit situations since the dimmers are built into the main unit. As a result, the AC wiring for all the lights to be controlled needs to be run to wherever the Grafik Eye QS will be installed. Fortunately, I had the electricians prewire my theater room specifically for it.

Now—post Lutron—those multiple scenes I mentioned earlier for movies, games, and reading are each available instantly by pressing a different button on the Grafik Eye QS located on the wall by the door, or by using the tabletop keypad. No more adjusting individual dimmers each time we do something different in the room. And since the Grafik Eye QS is part of the larger RadioRA 2 system, lights controlled by it can also be controlled by other keypads (or iPads/iPods) in the system. These lights can also be integrated in the All Off and Vacation global programming commands.

E-Motional
In my mind, no decent lighting-control system can be complete without its fair share of occupancy sensors. After all, lights that turn on and off automatically is what got me interested in lighting control to begin with. The RadioRA 2 system includes two types of occupancy sensors, ceiling-mounted and on-wall. They can be individually programmed for delay before turnoff (5, 15, and 30 minutes) and motion sensitivity. I’ve installed at least a dozen sensors throughout the house, with the coolest application (in my opinion) being the install in the downstairs bathroom where I installed three. The first sensor, above the door, turns the main overhead light on when someone walks in the bathroom. If that person decides to use the porcelain throne, a second sensor turns on the light over the commode—and (preemptively) turns on the exhaust fan. Should someone decide to step into the shower, a third sensor turns on the light above the shower as well as the exhaust fan. After five minutes of no movement (body, not bowel) being detected, each sensor shuts off the particular lights/fan it turned on. I’ve also programmed that first occupancy sensor to turn off the lights above the sink in case the person who was admiring him- or herself in the mirror forgets to turn them off manually.

In the theater room, I didn’t necessarily want the lights to automatically come on when someone enters the room because the motion of a latecomer entering the room during a movie might trigger the sensor to change the existing level of the lights and—in the case of watching a movie—blind everyone. But I hate it when the lights get left on after everyone leaves. So I installed a vacancy sensor (one that only turns lights off, never on) near the back of the room. It’s set to wait 30 minutes after the last motion is detected before turning off all the lights. My thinking is that no one will sit absolutely still for more than 30 minutes, and so far we haven’t had problems with the lights being turned off prematurely.

Everything Is Under Control
I’ve mentioned the word “programming” many times so far, and that’s because a RadioRA 2 system is more than just a collection of devices. What makes it all come together is the programming that your installer does. The flexibility and options that are available are extremely impressive—and I’ve found that the system is mainly limited by the number of devices you choose to install and your programmer’s creativity. Of course, the system is also limited by the existence of types of RadioRA 2 devices. For example, Lutron just introduced a RadioRA 2 HVAC controller, thermostat, and wireless temperature sensors, so now the system can also take charge of your heating and cooling usage. And the Car Visor Controller lets you open and close the garage door from any keypad in the house. However, for the moment, there’s no RadioRA 2 daylight sensor that you can use in conjunction with Lutron’s Sivoia QS Wireless motorized draperies, shades, and vertical blinds to adjust the window treatments based on the sun’s position. Many home automation systems, from companies such as Crestron, AMX, and Control4, will interface with the RadioRA 2 system, so it can become part of the whole house’s control architecture.

The new $20 iPad and iPod apps are not only easy to use and look spectacular, they let you make minor adjustments to some of the light levels programmed into buttons on the various keypads in the house. (There’s also a free Android app, although it’s not as good-looking.) The app can have up to 10 simultaneous logins, so if you’re using an iPad to control the lights, and another member of the household fires up his iPod, the RadioRA 2 system won’t kick the first user off in order to let the second user access the system.

History in the Making
Lutron has a storied 50-year history in the lighting-control business. In fact, Lutron’s founder, Joel Spira, invented the first dimming device in 1959. (That original dimmer and his notebooks are now in the Smithsonian Museum.) Even knowing all that history, I’m still astounded by how good the RadioRA 2 system is. It looks good. It’s easy to use. And in the months that I’ve been working on, tinkering with, and adding to the RadioRA 2 system, it has refused to let the bad wireless mojo that permeates my house affect its performance.

I still think that a lighting-control system involving helper monkeys and Oompa-Loompas would be a great thing to have for big parties or smaller gettogethers with friends. But I know it wouldn’t always work consistently or in a pre-planned manner—much like the hodgepodges I’ve tried to cram together in the past. The RadioRA 2 system has everything I’ve been looking for, and I was able to install it in my home with virtually no modifications. At this point, I know I haven’t taken advantage of all that the RadioRA 2 system has to offer. (In truth, I may not actually be worthy of a system this good.) Unfortunately, you’re not going to be able to put in a RadioRA 2 system on the cheap. But what it will do for you in terms of changing the way you live in your home will far outshine the amount of money you spend.

Dim Sum
Lighting control saves money—big time. Lutron calculates that dimming a bulb by 25 percent uses 20 percent less energy and helps the bulb last longer, too.

But dimming is just part of the picture. Occupancy sensors that turn the lights on or off when you enter or exit a room can save up to 20 percent in energy usage, as well. Throw in automated shade/drapery control (from 10- to 30-percent savings on heating/cooling costs), system-controlled Plug-in Appliance Modules (up to 10 percent electricity savings), thermostats that set back the temperature when a room is unoccupied (up to 16 percent or more on heating/cooling costs), and smart energy-saving programming features, such as easily accessed room or wholehouse All Off buttons, and you can bet it won’t be long before a very curious utility company inspector visits your house to make sure you haven’t been tampering with the meter.

Nationally, lighting control really pays off. Lutron estimates that in 2008 alone, the company’s lighting-control products helped save $1 billion in energy costs, reducing the U.S. lighting bill by 3 percent. Oh, one more set of numbers to throw at you: It’s much more economical to conserve electricity with dimmers than to build more generating capacity. Lutron estimates that it costs 35 cents to save 1 watt of electricity with a dimmer. Published industry estimates suggest that it costs anywhere from $1.40 to $7.75 to build 1 watt of electrical-generating capacity. And so far, there’s never been an environmental lawsuit stopping someone from installing dimmers in their home. (At least I don’t think so.)—DW
Source: http://www.soundandvision.com/content/lutron-radiora-2-home-control-system