The way a lot of smart dimmers and dimming modules worked, they put out some voltage to the load. LED light dimming turned out to be extremely difficult. Also, the large French company Legrand bought Vantage.
To make matters worse, once things moved towards cloud based, Lutron shined with their new DIY Caseta system and then seamlessly added cloud to their existing dealer systems (with just a connect bridge) and as far as I know, Vantage still doesn't have that.Ī couple other "game changing moments" also happened: LED lights became popular and the norm and SAVANT bought Lite-Touch and ended Lite-Touch systems.
Maybe for AV guys who work with Crestron type systems it made sense, but to me, it was not fun. Vantage on the other hand was really into AV by now so the installer had to custom design it and it was not very intuitive. Everybody wanted apps and more and more demand for lighting automation was there so both companies updated their systems and Vantage brought out its beautiful Infusion system and soon Lutron came out with their clear connect wireless systems and Homeworks QS and Radio Ra2 came out.īoth had apps but Lutron's was far more user friendly in my opinion because it would just take the existing house and put it on the app. Once the iPhone came out, it was a complete game changer. Lutron on the other hand stuck with lighting which also included shades (sun is a light after all) and was happy to just be the lighting and have other systems link into it. systems and Vantage who started in lighting started pivoting more towards that market by offering AV products, touch screens and the above mentioned companies started pivoting towards lighting. So, my position to customers was that if it was a retrofit, Lutron was the way to go and if it was a centralized system, Vantage was not going to take a 2nd seat to no-one and even though they didn't have as many color options or the elegance of Lutron, they would be a great choice and we'd highly recommend them.Īround this time, whole home automation also began to get popular and all these fancy houses had to have their Crestron, Control 4, Savant, ELAN, etc. Their wireless systems in particular were always lightyears better than anybody else in my opinion, even Vantage.
To this day you have to manually set the addresses on RPMs and such with Lutron.ĭon't get me wrong, I loved Lutron too but they seemed more like the jocks because they had a much bigger budget, invite installers for free training, buy meals, give away screw drivers, and more importantly, their products were very good. I also loved their panel systems over Lutron because it was modular and the addressing was far easier than Lutron's then antiquated dip switch addressing. They were small, very scrappy, enthusiastic, and it was easy to have a relationship with their support, engineers, and sales and customer support people. Lite-Touch to me seemed a little outdated and Vantage's products seemed like a much better version of Lite-Touch. Lutron was the big name because well, they invented the dimmer and much like with IBM, nobody ever got fired by installing Lutron's products. There were only 3 companies that did this - Lutron in PA, Lite-Touch in UT, and Vantage that was also in UT. Soon, installers and decorators started hiding the dimmers to have a "clean" look so centralized panel based systems became the status symbol for the very rich. They were also very clunky and essentially just let you put in some scenes, all via wired control wires and local dimming.
Like unbelievably expensive and only those with 4 million dollar houses could afford them. It used to be that Lighting Automation was VERY expensive. Anyway, I hope if another homeowner stumbles on this thread, I can uh, shed some light on the topic.įirst a little history.
The only systems I haven't worked with are the original Vantage Vision and the original Homeworks because well, they're really really old and I couldn't even run the software or find parts so he best thing there is to get a new upgrade.
For Lutron, they had the whole home Interactive which was followed by Illuminations, which was followed by Homeworks QS and of course they had Radio Ra as their DIY/lower end system which was replaced by the much more powerful Radio Ra2 and now they have Caseta, RA2 select and a whole bunch of other mini-systems. I know this is an old thread but I stumbled on here because I have installed and/or serviced both companies' systems for over a decade and have been around long enough to work with the current Generations: For Vantage, it used to be the Qlink system and later the Infusion system.