Okay, it's totally unofficial, but if you have any information beyond the email that says they can do it, and the website info that says they can do it, please toss it in the sink here for us to look over and poke at.

Heck, my rep doesn't have any more information than that.

My first question is: just what products will it control?

Ernie:

What "it" are you referring to?

URC Lighting by Lutron is our partnership with Lutron. Our line of dimmers, switches, and lamp modules are designed for single-room installations. They're cost effective for these kinds of installs because the dimmers are controlled directly via RF from the remote. Since it's a single room installation, no controller box is required. That brings the barrier to entry for professional lighting down to the cost of a single dimmer. And pretty much anything you'd think to do with lighting scenes, you can do with our system. Each dimmer can learn multiple addresses, and each address has On, Off, Bright, Dim, and 8 scenes.

All Complete Control remotes can control URC Lighting by Lutron. The newer models are a tad easier to program, but our engineers figured out a way to make even older Complete Control models work with the protocol.

The lighting is manufactured by Lutron, but you purchase it through your normal URC distributor or rep. As a single room system, it's not compatible with RadioRA or other whole-house systems. Our intent was to build a lighting system for installers whose clients aren't ready for whole-house, but who would love to control their theater lighting.

As an added bonus, we designed the lighting to eliminate truck rolls for simple scene reprogramming. All your client has to do is set the lights in the room to the desired levels then press and hold the scene button on the remote to reprogram a scene.

We're excited, obviously. Lutron is excited. It was a huge hit at CEDIA. We think it will open up huge opportunities for installers to add lighting to jobs that previously were out of the question due to the hight cost of that first dimmer (one dimmer plus a very expensive controller). Now all you have to sell to get your client excited about lighting is a single dimmer module. Once someone can control the lights with the remote, it becomes like controlling the TV... they wonder how they ever put up with walking up to the switch to turn on or off a light.

Anyway... if you have any more questions, hit me up. I'm excited! And hey, we're shipping the product now!

Best regards,
Dale

so an original mx950 will work?

yup, it should.

...Reading between the lines, it seems like it might even be possible to get "any" learning remote with RF of the proper frequency to work?

Probably any URC remote. I think their RF is proprietary. I wonder if the SL9000 would work ; )

Did I mention how excited I am for thi product. We try to put Lighting in Home theaters all the time and we only get a few a year. We just did a home theater with two repeaters, Master Controller, Ra RS232, three dimmers and three AD's. Price was 4k installed. I could accomplish the same exact results with the URC lighting for less than half the price. The only thing I see as being a problem is that people will complain that it is not whole house, and that there is no RS232 feedback, but for a single room solution, it's money in the bank. Thanks URC.

I was at one of my Disty's annual roll out last week and I saw the URC lighting control work just as Dale described. I also saw a working MX 6000 with the PSX-1 Ipod dock and that also worked as advertised. I was impressed. The release of these products is not far off, so I am told and URC has a good record for shipping new products on time.

Lighting is shipping now.

If it's the same frequency, theoretically you could. In the same way that RF is "learned" in Europe.

Maybe something like using a RTI or URC remote with crestron???

so your thinking URC switches could work with RTI, URC, Pronto, nevo??

That would be awsome

I wouldn't count on it. :)

Best regards,
Dale

Dale, dont be so negative, if it works then sales would go up as well.

Dont burst my bubble yet

Im trying to keep in the happy place...think happy place, think happy place

Kidding, Is there just no way for it to work with other remotes??

My clients really like me selling them touchscreen controllers, I dont mind selling them buttoned remotes but most always grab for a touchscreen remote

Yes they cost more but are usually more customizable too, they all say the MX3000 is to big and awkward for them, and prefer the RTI or Nevo over button and LCD remotes

But if it only works with URC remotes then its URC remotes that get the URC lighting.

Others systems get the usual Spacer systems, grafik eyes and centralite lighting if not interfaced with a whole house lighting system

Great job on the lighting by the way, I can see many jobs I can go back to now and add upsales too.

Thanks!!

I suppose there could be a catch if it additionally relies on URC's RF addressing. However having it work on any 418MHz remote doesn't seem like it would be the worst thing in the world from a potantial sales perspective...

Well, you all know that I'm not the typical "company man" sorta guy. If I was, I wouldn't be here posting at all. But... at least in this case, I can say that I'm pretty confident that our lighting will only work with our remotes... and I'm happy for that. Although I hold no ill will towards the folks at our competitors (they're just doing their jobs and paying for their kids' karate classes, just like me), I obviously have a vested interest in URC selling more remotes... and part of that strategy is our lighting. The products are designed to compliment each other in an installer's sales book.

So yeah... I'll be just as happy if nobody ever figures out a way to get URC Lighting by Lutron to work with other brands of remotes. I'm sure you guys understand that. :)

Best regards,
Dale