Lutrons RadioRA2 - Page 3

Look Ra2 is really powerful now. Lutron has made a really great leap forward with their new product line and I suspect they are trying to capture the green movement and will become an energy managment company more than anything. As far as what you should do is up to you. Do you need conditional logic? I.E. if you push this button from 9am - 6pm the lights do this or from 6pm - 9am they do that. That is a really important and price worthy improvement. Also if you want to clean up wall clutter by removing all your switches and having them run into dimming panels. If you don't than go with Ra2 because I would have say congrats on a nice house if you could max out all 200 devices. I've been told that most large Homeworks installs don't go more than 180 loads.

I don't think they will change wiring standards.

I didn't mention the one of the most important features of Ra2! The ability to WIRE Aux repeaters. So if you have a pool house more the 30' away you can use your existing unused wires to extend coverage. VERY NICE! HIGH FIVE!

Yeah when they announced the wired aux repeaters I had to go change my underpants in the bathroom. We are wiring for a Ra2 system right now with a pool house about 100 feet away that now can be easily integrated into the house system.

Also during the sales conference they did put a lot of emphasis on energy management.

The wiring will probably be the same as the new commercial quantum system which uses qs devices. The qs links can have any qs device on them up to 100 devices regardless of type keypad, grafik eye, qs shade, etc. They are also not limited to the daisy chain wiring scheme, you can star, t-tap or do whatever you want. Makes for much for flexibility in the wiring of the system. It still uses the standard 2+2 pair that Lutron systems have always used.

[quote=Neurorad;17534960]Thanks so much, Drew and Robert.

So, should I wait a year or more for HW QS Wired, or go Ra2 now? (rhetorical, of course)

If I decide to wait, any suggestions on how to wire for HW QS Wired? Lutron has gotten away with avoiding twisted pairs for so long that I have doubts they'll switch.

Maybe the 2+2(shielded), AND cat6 to each switch?[/QUOTE

If it was up to me I'd go for Ra2 right now, it's only going to get better.

The major drawback to Ra2 is the lack of conditional programming.

To help me understand conditionals better, can some people please provide more examples, other than time of day?

Those time of days conditionals will be able to happen when the Ra2 light sensor comes out, it just won't be something that you can tweak to your liking. Also when the thermostat comes out you will be able to activate your shades, if the stat senses the AC is working to hard to cool the space it will automatically lower the shades. Over next few years you will see Lutron further develop the Ra2 product line to capture more of the Mid-level market from all the Z-wave/zigbee companies out there.

So, Ra2 CAN/WILL allow conditional programming? Seems like it would have to, for jive with the 'green' marketing.

Technically no, but as you said there is talks of some GREEN logic that will be incorporated.

yup....

OK...here is something I do with conditionals

let's say you have a guest room and no one is staying with you. You go to bed and hit the "all off" button which turns all of the lights off in the house. Since the guest room is unused 99% of the time, the "all off" button turns off the lights in the guest room.

now you have company and they are staying in the guest room. They are up there and are reading and you hit the "all off" button. The lights go off in the guest room while occupied...not cool.

A way to avoid that is with conditionals. You create a true/false value that is used to indicate that the guest room is "occupied". A button on a keypad (I usually use a phantom keypad controlled by a automation processor but you can use a "real" keypad) that toggles the true/false. Then you program your "all off" button to only turn off the lights in the guest room if the value is "false".

anther thing I do is do toggle vacation playback/record based on house occupancy and only between sunset and sunrise. Home occupied and between sunset/sunrise, put the system in record mode. Home not occupied and between sunset/sunrise, put the system in play mode. Where this gets interesting is when the homeowner leaves before sunset and comes home after sunset or leaves/returns after sunset. This logic is driven by conditionals, the time clock and the state of the alarm panel; in other words, the homeowner never has to hit a button on the way out to deal with vacation mode, it is driven directly from the state of the alarm panel and is transparent to the user.

does that help?

Yeah, a lot.

Seems like most of the conditional stuff could be accomplished with a secondary controller linked to the Ra2, e.g. Elk M1, HAI OPII, CQC, Cortexa, ML, HomeSeer, etc.

Of course, I've read it's always better to program conditionals for lighting within the lighting system controller, but since conditionals won't be employed commonly (for me), that it won't be a deal breaker for Ra2.

Ra2 seems like the best option. Maybe I'll cable 2+2(shielded) to each of my kitchen dimmers, just in case, since it's a major remodel, and it's pretty cheap. Nice to leave options open, for peace of mind.

Now, what's the cheapest way to get Ra2...Q is gonna squash any discussion of that here . Brain churning, smile curling...

I have always designed/installed/implemented systems where even though there is a control processor (AMX/Crestron) that co-ordinates everything, I prefer to have each "subsystem" maintain it's own state.


You may not think you need conditionals, but once the system is in place, you will find a use for them


agreed


contact me off-list

jkv, thanks for the offer, I'll keep it in mind.

For the record, I figured out what cable I need to the dimmer locations, for HW4 (and hopefully QS Wired) - 18/2, stranded, shielded.

Searching for something comparable to Lutron Pink, at a more reasonable price. I think Honeywell/Genesis may be a good option...

The 2+2(shielded) is for the keypad locations, where there is no high voltage power available.

Edit - I found Sheer Wire makes a Lutron Pink knockoff, rhymes with zinety-one dollars/500ft, at tselectronic.com. Maybe Q won't be able to figure that out, and delete.

Does anyone know if there will be documentation available on how to talk to the system from another controller? Will I be able to use an RS-232 and/or TCP/IP connection from the main repeater to activate lights and receive notifications of button presses (either from the switches themselves, or from keypads?).

The RS232 control protocol for the current RadioRA line is freely available from Lutrons consumer site, so I don't see why it would be any different for RadioRA2.

You can see it here: http://www.lutron.com/cms400/page.aspx?id=7985&mn=1519

Hah! Sweet. Thank you! This will be simple to program if RA2's protocol is in any way similar. I love it when vendors use standard ASCII commands for control, really makes my life easier. I wrote an AMX interface for the X-10 CM11A "Activehome" years ago and that was more difficult.

So, when can we buy this stuff? The two dealers Lutron referred me to hadn't even heard of it yet and tried to sell me classic RA.

I think the official release is in January, and they are selling devices on a job to job order basis right now.

I'm in Canada so this information may differ across the line.

One or two weeks for most of the product. Electronic dimmers won't be available until Jan 1. T-Stats and everything else who knows.

If your dealers haven't heard of Radio Ra2 then I would recommend getting another bid! I will say that you can pick up Radio Ra Classic for the same price as Ra2 but I wouldn't go with it because it's much more limited than the new product.

Look on Lutron's web site for someone who is Preferred Systems Provider certified. It will give you an extended warranty of 4 years vs. 1 year.

I would probably avoid those 2 dealers if they haven't heard about Radio Ra2. Its pretty big news in the lighting game IMO.

I wouldn't knock anyone who tried to steer you towards "classic ra" if your looking to buy right now. No point in jumping on the new product bandwagon with your clients money before it has even shipped.

some of us dealers can get it now

Yeah, we can get it as well but we need to register the devices as a job, and they are selling packages on a job to job basis.

I Just got back from 2 days of Ra2 training back Lutron, if you have any further questions about the product let me know.

Robert, did you hear anything about availability of HW QS? 2011?

I'm a patient guy. My whole-house controller won't be operational until then, anyway.

HW wireless QS is suppose to be released at CEDIA 2010, but I wouldn't hold my breath. HW QS isn't even being talked about by Lutron, so I'm thinking 2012.

The QS announcement at CEDIA, although second stage to Ra2, seemed like a big deal. I guess they had a change of heart. However, it doesn't seem like it's much of a stretch to re-brand Quantum - it's not like it's new technology. The QS protocol is already published, Clear Connect is now established. Seems like QS would be perfect in this economic environment, with comparatively more retrofits.

I just wish I knew the details of HW QS, before making my Ra2 vs QS decision. I guess the only decision I really must make now is whether or not to run wire to the switches, during my remodel. I guess I just answered my own question.

I'm looking to use some lighting control in my new house currently under construction. The house has been framed and closed in but no permanent electrical work has been done yet.

The RA2 seems like it would fit what I need. I just talked to Lutron customer service and was told I could buy, install, and program the system myself and they would assist me. They also said I could just buy and install the dimmer switches and they would work fine standalone for now and I could program them later. Since I'm being held(wisely) to a pretty strict budget this seems like a great solution.

The info I was told by Lutron seems to run counter to some of the info posted in this thread. What am I missing?