Well, thats going to vary from market to market. A $500k house here is a VERY nice house. A GREAT house. Ra2 goes in a ton of them.

How?

Everything you do is tracked.

Ever wonder why you come here and read a thread about something and then it shows up elsewhere?

Ever wonder when you google something and then the add shows up on sites like RC even though it may not have anything todo with CIs?

Crazy isn't it?

I've been a Lutron fan for years, but lately- it's gotten under my skin that their 'ecosystems' aren't compatible. Not just the 3 in Resi either- but the commercial stuff too. There are 5 or 6 different systems which are SO similar yet none of which can work together. Very curious as to their 'road map' going forward.

I never said anything about paying less for those subset of Ra2 devices that would work with the Smart Bridge Pro. For instance if someone had a Caseta system with about 20-30 devices and decided they wanted to add a couple of keypads and several fan controls. They call up their local rep and ask how they can do that. At this time the rep would have to rip and replace everything and put in a Ra2 system. That person with Caseta is not going to want to lose that investment they already have in Caseta and also doesnt want to pay for a full blown Ra2 system. Wouldn't the rep rather sell them a couple of $150-$300 keypad dimmers, several $150-$200 fan controls and maybe a motion sensor? Seems like easy money to me.

I'm not saying every Ra2 device would be compatible with Smart Bridge Pro but a subset of those devices only available through local distributors seems like a win for everyone.

I would say that in the vast majority of the country 500k gets you a very nice home. Just not in major cities, or where the 1% want to live.

In fact where Mac is/was living in McHenry, 500K gets a very nice home as well.

I was using that as a $0-$500K maximum because most of the $0-500K houses i have been in do not have any lighting control beyond whats available at home depot. Obviously there are guys with $100k lighting systems in $300k houses and people with no electronics in $10 million dollar houses so there really isn't a way to tell who will or wont spend money on lighting....but...most houses that are in the upper 6 figures and up have lighting control like they have sheetrock...its just an assumed included feature.

I have been in Mchenry County for a while. We just bought a place in Mchenry. There are a lot of nice houses here at the $500k range but not many with lighting control or even distributed AV. That may be different with new builds & custom homes but all i haven't seen it.

The same person would have to trade his car in if he wanted to add extra features. In fact i have done just that. I bought a base model Nissan Juke and liked it so when i wanted to just add AWD/Navigation/Leather Seats i traded it in and got the car that had the right features.

Would it have been nice if i could just buy an AWD module and handle the seats and nav with aftermarket products? Sure but that isn't how it works.


Where does the line get drawn? This was attempted with Prodigy over at Crestron and it failed miserably. Every week it was "why cant we program it in simpl" and "why cant they add a switcher" and "why cant we use prodigy remotes with regular crestron" and on and on until their engineers locked themselves in the Crestron Faraday Cage and blew each others brains out.

It's not just Lutron. I remember looking for laptops a few years ago. There were 3 apple models and each had 2 versions...one more expensive with better specs. I think it was HP but might have been samsung that had 25 models available. Most of which could then be customized.

I don't understand this approach at all. Lutron should have 2 products with one being more expensive because it has more features. Car companies are just as bad. BMW with their 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8 series. Give me a break. There should be 1 series and 2 series with one of them being more expensive because it has more features.

Out of curiosity i just did a keyword search for the chicagoland area. $400K - No Maximum. Obviously this doesn't cover everyone because some brokers are idiots who don't include important information but the results are interesting.

Keyword "Lutron" 1 house for $500k. 1 at $650k. The other 10 are $1 mil+.

Keyword "Crestron" shows 8 houses all $1.5 mil+.

You are right with Prodigy. But PYNG is a nicer Ecosystem to deal with.

Except you can most definitely do that! When I was a youngster, I went on a road trip with my high school friends. We made some mix tapes (dating myself a bit...), but the 87 Olds cutlass ciera brougham that we bought for $200 didn't have a tape player. When we passed a junkyard, we pulled the deck out and went inside. I told the guy that it was broken and asked if we could go look for one to replace it. My Dad's car had the version with a tape deck, so I knew what I was looking for. When we found one, we grabbed it and as we walked back through the office, I told the guy we didn't have any luck - it looked the same; he didn't notice the deck. It fit right in. Factory plugs and all.

More recently, my buddy put cruise control in his Toyota Matrix that way. Bought the factory parts and just put them in where the factory holes were.

that is absolutely the exception not the rule. especially with todays modern vehicles.

Okay so in your example Brendan's customer has to scour flea markets and junk yards to find the right parts to steal to upgrade his system.

In my example i went to the dealer and handed them my keys and he handed me a new set.