CES 2021: Lutron Debuts New Outdoor Smart Plug for Caséta Lighting System

This is a no-brainer for HomeKit enthusiasts. The Caséta devices just work, first time, every time. Hue devices often fail to respond, iHome devices go out to lunch and need a reboot every few months (and iHome's leaving the market), but Caséta just plain works. I have never had to troubleshoot a Caséta device.

Seems like the holiday season would have been the time to launch this, but hey.

This doesn't answer the question of how much buy-in to the "system" do I need?
Presumably i have to buy a hub box, but do I have to go through the whole "deal only with an authorized service rep who will insist on doing the installation" nonsense that seems to be part of (all of?) Lutron/Serena's business model?

You can buy Caseta switches at Home Depot and plenty of other places, and while the install is a bit more than a regular light switch, it's nothing someone comfortable with wiring their own switches can't do.

I ordered window blinds direct from Lutron and installed them myself. Again - you could hire someone to do it, but the challenge isn't the Lutron/Caseta set up but rather making sure you've got the screws in the right place and so on. Not too different from manual blinds.

And while you didn't ask - automatic blinds are the shiznit!

OK, that's what I meant. Dealing with Lutron is a substantial commitment to redo your house, it's not a "let's buy one item from Amazon and try it out".

That's fine, works for some people. But I prefer the one item at a time model for constantly upgrading my house.

I went whole hog with an RA2 Select system. You certainly don’t have to go that far or all at once. For $100 ('https://www.lowes.com/pd/Lutron-Caseta-Wireless-Single-Pole-3-Way-White-Smart-LED-Decorator-Light-Dimmer-Kit-with-Smart-Hub-with-Wall-Plate/999959769') you can get a starter Caséta kit with the bridge (you’ll plug it into your router’s WAN ethernet port) and two switches. Nothing and no one else needed. Additional wall switches are around 50 bucks and you can expand as you wish.

OK, that's what I meant. Dealing with Lutron is a substantial commitment to redo your house, it's not a "let's buy one item from Amazon and try it out".

That's fine, works for some people. But I prefer the one item at a time model for constantly upgrading my house.

The other paradigm (Hue, Leviton, etc.) has each device being its own WiFi device,

I don't know what Leviton does, but this is absolutely not true for Hue. Hue uses Zigbee (Zigbee Light Link initially, Zigbee 3.0 compatible now), and the Hue Bridge has only an Ethernet connection, so there is no Wi-Fi necessarily involved at all (and in a Light Link network, the bulbs and accessories will mostly keep functioning on their own without a Bridge, which isn't really a "hub" in that sense). Zigbee is designed to be a mesh network, so mains-powered devices acts as "repeaters" (routers in Zigbee terms) for all devices to find a path they need to other devices on the network, often the Bridge to a bulb or accessory. The latest generation also supports Bluetooth, but that's really for people who just want to use the app to control a few bulbs; you'll need the Bridge (and Zigbee) for the full feature set, which is what I'm talking about here--though it should be noted that this other option is still BT and not Wi-Fi.

This is actually one advantage Hue has over Lutron's ClearConnect protocol, which is not mesh: arbitrarily large range. Lutron lets you add up to two "extenders," but that is a fairly new feature. For more range, you'll need a "full" RA2 system where you can add more RA2 Main Repeaters or Auxiliary Repeaters. That being said, ClearConnect does have lots of advantages: not being mesh means you never have to worry about some routing oddities that occasionally plague Zigbee (but usually not with simple networks like Hue/ZLL); they use a low-frequency less-crowded bandwidth; and their products have a well-deserved solid reputation (though I'd say Hue does too).

What you mentioned, however, is one reason I wouldn't fill my house with devices like LIFX or Shelly--or even lots of HomeKit-compatible plugs I see here from time to time. Nothing against Wi-Fi itself (I do have several Wi-Fi "smart" devices), just probably not the best protocol for large numbers of these things.