I’ve looked at Lutron and as you say the reviews are all very positive. Our home, built in 1905, has all push button light switches, most of which are original and Lutron doesn’t make such a switch (though others do but not smart switches at this point). For any home automation control I need smart plugs or smart outlets. Our front porch ceiling fans have “smartness” built in and they do work well. The other 3 don’t but all have remote controls that are sufficient for our needs. We have dimming only for two sconces on either side of a fireplace wall and use the Nanoleaf bulbs to achieve that. When they’re working, thankfully most of the time, that’s about all the dimming we need in the home frankly.
The net of all this is that Lutron, regardless of cost, is likely not in our future as their products don’t align with our needs, but like you I’ve heard nothing but good things. So…still looking. Maybe the Tapo products (replacing Kasa?) by TP Link are worth another look as suggested by
@actcyclist. I remain disappointed that after a couple of decades of development or more that these haven’t become commodities that “just work” but seem to still be in development with lots of idiosyncracies that depend on absolutely pure power, absolutely fast and solid networking, phases of the moon, your dog’s mood, and whatever else. Thread/Matter seems to have added more layers of things that may or may not work reliably rather than adding bulletproofness.
