Gadgetory

hey I'm here in the CNET's smart home to show you what I think is some of the best connected home tech that money can currently buy it's the Lutron casada in wall dimming switch over the course of a couple months of testing here at the smart home the Lutron switches have been exceptional they've worked with everything we've tested them with they've always been reliable the light that come on we've one of them the integrations of all work we can control them using voice commands they're just very very smooth reliable nice smart home gadget now unlike some other smart switches the Lutron casada switches don't use Wi-Fi radios instead they communicate using the Lutron clear connect signal it's a proprietary language that they use for that reason you'll need to have a Lutron bridge plugged into your router to act as translator but it's easy to set up and everything works really well aside from turning things on and off at the switch you can use Siri voice commands because these are apple homekit compatible lights you can say Siri turn the kitchen lights off or turn the pantry light off here you can say turn all the downstairs lights off all of that will work if you program it in the app Lutron switches work with Alexa too so if you enabled that skill you can tell Alexa to turn the lights on and off in just the same way other useful integrations include wink and if and also the Nest Learning Thermostat which you can control right from the Lutron app the same is true for popular smart thermostats from Honeywell and ecobee compatibility is a huge strong point with Lutron all in all Lutron's involve Demming switches really check off all the boxes that I look for in a good smart lighting product they work reliably well they work with a wide variety of different products and services and they have a very good set of features available right out of the box with to switch starter kits that come with the bridge starting for about 190 dollars and additional switches selling for about 60 they definitely don't come cheap but there's still a worthy winner of CNET's editor's choice distinction and while we're saving up for if smart lighting is something that you're interested in