Lutron RA2 Leeds: Professional Smart Lighting Installation for Homes Across Leeds and Harrogate
Lutron RA2 Leeds: Professional Smart Lighting Installation for Homes Across Leeds and Harrogate
Smart Home Brands › Lutron RA2 Select
Lutron RA2 Select Installer in Leeds
Approved and trained to install Lutron RA2 Select. Designed, fitted and commissioned properly across Leeds and the surrounding areas.
You’ve clicked our Lutron RA2 Select badge – here’s what sits behind it
If you’ve clicked through from the Lutron RA2 Select badge on our website, you’re probably checking whether we actually have experience and training with the system.
That’s a sensible thing to check.
Craig Wright of SmartOhm Electrical and Smart Home completed Lutron RA2 Select PRO training on 11 April 2022.
The training supports our practical experience of designing, installing, setting up and programming Lutron RA2 Select smart lighting systems for customers.
For us, smart lighting isn’t about filling a home with gadgets or giving you another app to open every time you want to turn a light on.
A well-designed system should make the lighting simpler to use.
That’s where Lutron RA2 Select works particularly well.
Lutron describes RA2 Select as a smart lighting control system built around dimmers, switches, Pico controls and a Main Repeater, with control available through physical controls as well as the Lutron app.
SmartOhm installs smart lighting systems across Leeds, Wakefield, Huddersfield, Harrogate, Wetherby and surrounding areas.
Discuss a Lutron RA2 Select installationWhat is Lutron RA2 Select?
RA2 Select is Lutron’s wireless smart lighting control system.
Rather than relying on individual smart bulbs throughout the house, the system controls the lighting at the switching and dimming level.
That distinction matters.
Lutron specifically designed RA2 Select so that smart control happens at the dimmer or switch rather than requiring every lamp to be a smart bulb.
That means the lighting can still feel like normal lighting.
You can walk into a room and press a button.
Guests can use it.
Children can use it.
You don’t have to find your phone just to turn the lights down.
The smart side of the system sits behind that everyday simplicity.
Depending on how the installation is designed, RA2 Select can provide things such as:
- Individual lighting control
- Dimming
- Lighting scenes
- Pico wireless controls
- Scheduled lighting
- App control
- Remote control when away from home
- Integration with compatible smart home products
- Compatible Lutron blind control
Lutron also supports scheduled operation and scene control, allowing several lights to be adjusted together rather than individually.
What does our Lutron RA2 Select PRO training mean?
The certificate displayed on this page confirms that I completed Lutron RA2 Select PRO training on 11 April 2022.
That training is relevant because installing smart lighting properly involves more than simply wiring in a dimmer.
You need to understand how the system is put together.
You need to think about:
- How the customer actually uses each room
- Which lighting circuits should be controlled
- Which loads need dimming and which need switching
- Compatibility between the lighting and control equipment
- Where controls should be positioned
- How scenes should work
- How the Main Repeater fits into the system
- Programming and commissioning
- Making the finished system easy for the homeowner to use
Lutron’s own Lighting Control Institute provides training specifically to improve professionals’ ability to design, install and programme lighting and lighting control systems.
That’s the part of smart lighting that can easily be missed.
The equipment matters.
But the design and programming make the system useful.
A simple Lutron installation can make a big difference
Not every smart lighting project needs to control an entire house.
We’ve installed a Lutron RA2 Select system where the customer simply wanted better control of the lighting in one area.
The installation used one Pico remote, configured to control four useful lighting scenes:
- All On
- Dining
- Relaxing
- Off
That’s it.
Nothing unnecessarily complicated.
Instead of the customer having to adjust several lighting circuits individually every time they wanted to change the feel of the room, one control could put the lighting into the right setting.
For example, the Dining scene could bring the lighting to the levels that worked around the dining table.
Later in the evening, pressing Relaxing could reduce the lighting to something softer.
And when leaving the room, Off dealt with the lighting without having to go around switching several circuits individually.
This is where smart lighting becomes genuinely useful.
You’re not adding technology for the sake of it.
You’re removing several little actions that you repeat every day.
Good smart lighting starts with scenes, not apps
One mistake we see with smart home technology is starting with the products.
Someone sees a smart switch, an app or a particular piece of equipment and thinks:
“I want that.”
What we’d usually recommend is starting with a different question:
“What do you want the lighting to do?”
Take a kitchen, dining and living space.
You might want:
- Plenty of light when preparing food
- A softer setting when eating
- Lower-level lighting when relaxing
- A simple way of turning everything off at night
Those are the requirements.
The technology comes afterwards.
Once we know how you use the room, we can work out which circuits should be controlled and how the scenes should behave.
That usually produces a much better result than installing equipment first and trying to make the lifestyle fit around it afterwards.
You shouldn’t need your phone to turn the lights on
App control is useful.
But in my view, it shouldn’t be the only practical way of using your lighting.
Lutron makes the same point with RA2 Select: physical Pico controls can operate the lighting without somebody needing the app, so visitors and other people in the house can use the system normally.
That’s important.
Imagine you’ve spent money on a smart lighting system and then a family member comes to stay.
They shouldn’t need:
- Your Wi-Fi password
- An account
- An app
- A five-minute explanation
just to turn a light on.
A properly planned Lutron system can give you the smart functions in the background while keeping familiar physical controls around the home.
For most customers, that’s the better way to do it.
What is a Lutron Pico remote?
A Pico wireless control is one of the useful parts of the Lutron system.
Depending on the configuration, it can be used to control individual lighting or provide access to programmed scenes.
Lutron’s current RA2 Select range includes Pico wireless controls and scene keypads, and the controls can be positioned in convenient locations without requiring conventional switch wiring to that control position.
That can be particularly useful in:
- Kitchens
- Open-plan living spaces
- Bedrooms
- Cinema rooms
- Hallways
- Home offices
- Bedside locations
It can also help when adding a useful control position somewhere that would otherwise involve chasing walls and installing additional switch wiring.
The important bit isn’t the remote itself.
It’s what we programme the buttons to do.
What is the RA2 Select Main Repeater?
The Main Repeater sits at the centre of a connected RA2 Select installation.
It allows compatible RA2 Select devices to be set up, monitored and controlled through the Lutron app and provides the link between the lighting system and compatible smart home services.
One of the reasons we like dedicated lighting control systems is that the basic operation of the lights doesn’t need to depend on your phone.
Lutron states that RA2 Select uses its own wireless lighting-control technology, so the lighting can continue to operate even if the home’s Wi-Fi is unavailable.
That’s a significant difference from building an entire lighting system around Wi-Fi-controlled bulbs.
Your internet can be down.
Your phone can be flat.
You should still be able to operate the lights.
Do I need smart bulbs with Lutron RA2 Select?
In most cases, no.
That’s one of the main differences between RA2 Select and the type of smart lighting systems built around individual connected bulbs.
Lutron explains that RA2 Select puts smart control at the switch or dimmer and is designed to work with a wide choice of suitable dimmable lamps rather than requiring dedicated smart bulbs.
That can make much more sense where a home has:
- Multiple downlights on one circuit
- Decorative fittings
- Pendant lights
- LED strips
- Several lamps controlled together
Rather than treating every lamp as a separate smart device, we can think about the lighting circuit and the room as a whole.
Compatibility still matters, particularly when dimming LEDs.
That’s one reason we check the lighting and proposed equipment properly before deciding what should be installed.
Why lighting compatibility matters
LED lighting has made homes more efficient and given us far more choice.
But not every LED lamp or driver behaves exactly the same way when dimmed.
Poor compatibility can result in things such as:
- Flickering
- Lights not dimming low enough
- Unstable dimming
- Lights dropping out
- Lights not switching cleanly
- A limited usable dimming range
This isn’t unique to smart lighting.
It’s something that needs considering with modern dimming generally.
The best way to deal with it is to think about the lighting load and control equipment together, rather than buying everything separately and hoping it works.
That’s part of the design work we carry out before installing a Lutron system.
What happens when you book a Lutron RA2 Select installation?
We start with how you want the lighting to work.
Not with a box of products.
We’ll discuss the rooms you’re considering, how you currently use the lighting and what you’d like to improve.
Where required, we’ll visit the property and look at the existing electrical installation and lighting circuits.
From there, we can decide:
- Which circuits should be controlled
- Which should dim
- Which should simply switch
- Where controls would be useful
- Which lighting scenes make sense
- Whether app control is required
- Whether schedules would be useful
- Whether future expansion needs considering
We’ll then specify the appropriate Lutron equipment and provide a written quotation before undertaking the work.
Once agreed, we install the equipment, configure the system and programme the required scenes.
We test everything properly and make sure the physical controls work logically.
Then we’ll show you how to use it.
The aim is that by the time we leave, you don’t need an instruction manual just to operate your own house.
Common mistakes with smart lighting
There are a few mistakes worth avoiding.
Choosing the equipment before designing the lighting
This is probably the biggest one.
Start with what you want the room to do.
Then choose the system.
Making everything app-dependent
The app should add convenience.
It shouldn’t make basic lighting harder to use.
Creating too many scenes
Twenty scenes might sound impressive during programming.
In everyday life, you’ll probably use a handful.
All On, Dining, Relaxing and Off worked well on our installation because every button had an obvious purpose.
Not considering LED compatibility
Smart dimming still has to work electrically with the lighting it’s controlling.
Forgetting about other people in the house
A smart home should be easy for everybody who lives there.
And preferably understandable to a visitor as well.
Can Lutron RA2 Select be expanded later?
Yes, and this is another useful feature of the system.
Lutron positions RA2 Select as a system that can start with one area and expand as the homeowner’s requirements grow.
That means you don’t necessarily have to automate every room on day one.
For some customers, it makes sense to start with:
- Kitchen and dining
- Main living room
- Principal bedroom
- Exterior lighting
Then expand later if they like how the system works.
What we’d usually recommend is thinking about future expansion during the initial design so we’re not making decisions now that unnecessarily limit what you may want to do later.
Lutron RA2 Select and smart home integration
RA2 Select isn’t limited to standalone lighting control.
The Main Repeater also enables integration with compatible smart home systems and services. Lutron currently promotes RA2 Select as capable of working alongside a range of third-party smart home products.
If you’re planning a wider smart home installation, it’s worth discussing that at the beginning.
Lighting is often one of the most-used parts of a smart home.
So rather than treating it as an isolated system, we can look at how it fits into the wider project.
SmartOhm works across both electrical installation and smart home technology, which means we can consider the electrical side and the control side together.
Why use SmartOhm for Lutron RA2 Select?
Craig Wright completed Lutron RA2 Select PRO training on 11 April 2022.
Alongside that product-specific training, SmartOhm brings 21 years of hands-on electrical and smart home installation experience.
SmartOhm Electrical and Smart Home is also:
- NAPIT Registered – Full Scope
- TrustMark Registered
- A Which? Trusted Trader
- Rated with more than 85 five-star Google reviews
- Experienced in electrical and smart home installation for 21 years
For a smart lighting installation, that combination is useful.
The project isn’t being approached purely as an IT job.
We’re electricians as well.
We can look at the existing wiring, lighting circuits, protective devices, electrical compatibility and testing alongside the programming and smart home side.
That’s how we’d want our own lighting installed.
Lutron RA2 Select installation across Leeds and West Yorkshire
SmartOhm provides Lutron RA2 Select and smart lighting installation across Leeds and the surrounding areas.
We also cover customers across:
- Wakefield
- Huddersfield
- Harrogate
- Wetherby
- North Leeds
- Alwoodley
- Roundhay
- West Park
- Surrounding towns and villages
If you’re renovating a home, changing the lighting or simply want more convenient control of an existing room, we’re happy to discuss whether RA2 Select is suitable.
It doesn’t have to become a complicated whole-house automation project.
Sometimes four well-designed lighting scenes and one simple control are all you actually need.
Talk to us about Lutron lightingFrequently Asked Questions
Is SmartOhm trained to install Lutron RA2 Select?
Yes.
Craig Wright completed Lutron RA2 Select PRO training on 11 April 2022.
The certificate is displayed on this page so customers can see the training behind the service.
Does Lutron RA2 Select need Wi-Fi to turn the lights on?
RA2 Select’s lighting controls don’t rely on ordinary Wi-Fi for basic local lighting operation.
Lutron states that its dedicated wireless technology allows the lighting to continue operating if the home’s Wi-Fi goes down.
Internet connectivity is relevant to features such as remote app access and connected services.
Can I still use normal buttons instead of an app?
Yes.
And for most installations, we’d recommend that you can.
Pico wireless controls provide physical lighting control, so everyday use doesn’t have to depend on a smartphone.
Can one button control several lights?
Yes.
That’s one of the main benefits of lighting scenes.
A scene can control several lighting circuits together and set them to pre-programmed levels.
On one of our installations, a single Pico control gave the customer four simple scenes:
All On, Dining, Relaxing and Off.
Can RA2 Select work with existing wiring?
Lutron states that RA2 Select can work with existing home wiring, making it suitable for both existing properties and renovation projects.
The exact installation requirements still depend on the property, lighting circuits and equipment being controlled, which is why we survey the job first.
Do I need to replace all my bulbs with smart bulbs?
Usually not.
RA2 Select controls the lighting at the dimmer or switch rather than relying on individual smart bulbs. Lutron states that the system works with most suitable dimmable LED lamps.
We’ll still check compatibility between the proposed lighting and controls before specifying the installation.
Can I start with one room?
Yes.
RA2 Select can be used for a smaller installation and expanded later.
For many homeowners, starting with the kitchen, dining area or main living space is a sensible way to experience smart lighting before deciding whether to extend it further.
Do you install Lutron RA2 Select outside Leeds?
Yes.
SmartOhm provides Lutron and smart lighting installation across Leeds, Wakefield, Huddersfield, Harrogate, Wetherby and surrounding areas.
Send us the property location and a brief description of what you’re looking to achieve and we’ll let you know if we cover the area.
Looking for a Lutron RA2 Select Installer?
If you’re considering Lutron smart lighting in Leeds, Harrogate, Wetherby, Wakefield or Huddersfield, get in touch with SmartOhm Electrical and Smart Home.
We’ll start by talking about how you actually want to use the lighting.
Then we’ll look at the existing installation, explain the sensible options and provide a written quote before carrying out the work.
No need to decide how many dimmers, Pico controls or scenes you need before speaking to us.
That’s part of our job.
Send over a photo, give us a call, or tell us what you’d like the lighting to do.
Thinking about Lutron RA2 Select?
Tell me what you're trying to achieve and I'll tell you honestly whether Lutron RA2 Select is the right fit.