Review on 🔆 Lutron Aurora Dimmer for Philips Z3 - 1BRL-WH-L0 by Janet Rivera

Update 7/16/2020: You can use them together without a light switch. I got a little creative and simply installed one on a two button switch plate mounted to a single gang electrical box. I used this switch to separate the light and ceiling fan, which I've wanted to do for a long time. This is only possible if you have a neutral wire in your junction box as well as a separate dedicated hot wire in your ceiling box. I have both so I didn't need to connect power to both units for this to work. I connected the light to tint bulbs and a toggle switch on the wall which I replaced with a Lutron Caseta fan dimmer and then wired it so the switch only controls the fan and not the light which is now hardwired since these are tint bulbs that can be controlled by the lutron aurora, i was actually going to cut the wall and fit a 2 gang switch box so i could connect the switch plate to the 2 gang switch box, but when i did that i was Clearly the electrical box was clamped with two bolts, so I couldn't insert a two-piece box. I was actually going to cut through the wall and put in a two piece electrical box so I could attach the switch plate to the two piece electrical box, but when I did that I found that the electrical box was clamped with two bolts so I couldn't tie the box with two straps to install. My solution was to use a drum-thick screw. I had to use a washer to keep the end of the screw from going through the hole in the toggle switch. The hole was too wide. After installing the Aurora on the end of the screw, I tightened the screw just enough to tighten it flush with the switch plate. I had to poke a hole in the wall with a razor blade so the switch plate was flush, although there was a stud sticking out at the back. But this hole I poke was a lot smaller than the hole I wanted to cut to add the two gear box, so it's fine. To get the fine thread switch plate screws I got a Mr Grip grip from my local hardware store. Maybe they sell it on Amazon too? I am not sure. These are strips of metal that can be cut to size with your teeth. It is designed to repair punctured holes in wood and other things. In this case I screwed the switch panel screws directly into the drywall and then unscrewed them, then cut out some tiny strips of metal and stuck them in the holes. After putting enough strips in, the switch plate screws eventually caught on the metal so I could attach it to the drywall. The end result was that I had two switches and a nice switch panel on the wall, one controlled my lights and the other my fan. From the looks of it, you'll never guess that there's actually no switch in the wall, or even a dual electrical outlet. You can see the end result in the last photo. This is the one with the fan dimmer on the right and the Aurora on the left. Update 6/4/2020: We've had them installed for a while now and my son loves getting them off the wall. He does it with ease and lately has become more interested in this hobby. Yesterday while bathing, he got out of the bathtub, climbed onto the stool to the light switch, removed it and put it in the bathtub, and then, while submerged in water, began to press the button. Surprisingly it worked in the bath and continued to work after I pulled it out of the hands it was in. I decided to put it on a permanently running air purifier in the evenings just to be safe, but I'm not even sure if it was necessary. At the moment it still works! So if you have small hands around the house, rest assured that it is indeed waterproof, at least to a point. I think? Bottom Line: This switch is perfect for some areas of our home. I wish it had more flexibility in terms of control like a tint dimmer remote (namely, multi-tap to control different scenes and Home Kit support), but where it's not really needed it works fine. However, it can be configured to control Homekit devices using Homekit Automation with tinted bulbs. We ended up putting some on regular toggle plates for now, but some we fitted to any decor style switch panels that we really like using an adapter from Amazon (more on that in the 4th paragraph in the "Style" section). ") . Be careful though, babies love to press the button and I wouldn't say this thing is super durable. Style: The switch looks pretty good but could have looked better in my opinion. As you can see it looks a lot like one of those cheap rotary dimmers. This is true in reality as well as in pictures. This can be taken as a good or bad thing. If you prefer a high tech modern look then unfortunately I wouldn't say so "that this item really fills that need. If you are looking for something that looks normal, harmonizes and is functional then this is perfect for you. I only have a couple of complaints about the style and that is that the base for this white switch is grey is? Which I can't understand. I think it would be better if the base was white, maybe even more modern. I'm not sure what motivated the visible gray base. And secondly, the light that came out during the bub smoke in the switch lights up, only the small dot at the top (in the picture). I think it would be better if they just lighted the middle of the switch all the way, but the design of this switch made it too hard to design? We wanted to use them with any decorative panels that we really like and we were able to do that with adapters. which you can find on Amazon by searching "cup adapter plate". The one we used cost about $12 and was made by the Taymac brand. You can see the end result in the photo, it turned out pretty good. The Aurora Switch doesn't completely cover the adapter's cutout, but almost, and it's hardly noticeable that the cutout isn't covered. Durability: I would not recommend using this switch in high stress scenarios or if you have this switch in direct reach of a toddler who likes to "push the button". It's fairly easy to remove (my 2-year-old hasn't experienced this), and you can also break the clip to secure the switch to the base. I didn't break it personally, but I received the stock offer, which I'm returning with a broken clip (so it's likely someone else broke it and returned it). Aside from breaking it, I'm also afraid of losing it. It's pretty small, and if it ends up in any column I don't know how or if we'll ever find it again. I've had to take it completely off the wall a few times when my two year old was having too much fun with it. Also, this switch feels cheap overall. I'm not too upset with the amount of technology you get in this tiny little device at such an affordable price, I wasn't expecting more. But you just have to be careful. Functionality: Works well. It does the job. The two main purposes of this switch are equally successful. Even if my toddler removes the switch from the wall, he still can't flip the switch on the bottom when the base is in place (and he tried). It also apparently discourages uninformed guests from turning off your smart lights, which was a big concern of mine. As for the lighting, it's fine. Yes it works. Sometimes there is a very slight delay, but it can actually be half a second or something like that. It's not bad. It's not as simple as a normal switch. But when all your lights are online, you can't wait. That being said, if latency bothers you at all you might want to consider a remote tint dimmer, I found the latency to be lower with it. (There are switch plates you can find online. They hold the remote magnetically and close the switch like this dimmer. Just locate the switch plate for the tint dimmer and they should fit. Remember, they're made out of rough plastic that's on 3D printed by printer (they need to be sanded and painted to look as perfect as store bought switch plates, but they work fine.) But still, as I said, the lag only happens sometimes and then it's minimal Can be turned upside down to lock the switch in the opposite position (e.g. on three position switches or upside down switches) The light in the switch will even automatically rotate to the other side of the switch to accommodate the new direction .With this switch only the side of the switch rotates when dimming, not the whole switch like a cheap rotary dimmer.The center of the Sc halters never rotates. Also, you can only press the center of the button and not the whole switch like cheap rotary dimmers. It's not important to me, but it might be noticeable to some people. If you're worried about setup and installation, don't worry. The entire process takes less than a few minutes per switch, including installing the dimmer over the toggle switch and connecting to the lights in the Hue app. It is very simple, fast and clear. Navigate to the accessory settings in the settings panel of the hue app. Then click Friends of Hue and the Lutron Aurora comes first for me. It tells you exactly how to set up the switch right in the hue app, I needed almost no manual and I didn't need a Lutron app at all. My only complaint here is that I wish they had the ability to double or triple tap to activate different scenes. We just bought a remote tint dimmer in parts of the house where we needed that option, but knowing the Aurora is capable of it (you'll have to double and/or triple tap during setup) I would happy for you to add it. also as a characteristic of light abilities. For now, you can just set which Scene you want to activate (or turn on last), and that's it. it is not a Homekit device. It works with light shades and nothing else. So if you were hoping this would control other devices or set the scene in Homekit, this won't work. You can bypass this with an automaton if you really want it (set Homekit automation: when the bathroom light turns on/off, the bathroom fan turns on/off), but you can't just press a button to turn on the Homekit to activate the scene. or other accessories. We've now done this with the light on a Homekit aroma diffuser (made by vocolink for $50) that we placed in our bathroom. Currently I have it set up to turn green when the bathroom light is on during the day and turn off when the bathroom light is off. It works with almost 100 percent accuracy, and sometimes the diffuser light comes out a little quicker than the bathroom light. I also have a diffuser light that becomes more nocturnal after a certain hour of the night, which is possible because you can set time limits on your vending machines in Homekit. However, you cannot use Homekit to dim and brighten Homekit (like in a diffuser) when dimming and brightening the light with the Aurora switch. There is no way to set this up, it can only be triggered by power cycling. However, you can adjust how brightly you want your Homekit to turn on when the tint indicator lights up. But it always turns on at the same brightness, except for timing reasons of course (turn on 100% brightness before 5pm, turn on 50% brightness after 5pm, etc.). In general I am very satisfied. with this switch and now we have bought several for different parts of the house and they all work fine except for the ones that were broken.