Lutron Smart Lighting Systems Get Google Assistant Integration

Lutron has announced that its connected lighting systems now work with Google Assistant, enabling users to control their home's lights using voice commands. The new Google Assistant integration works with the company's HomeWork QS, Caseta Wireless, and RadioRA 2; homeowners can control the system using the Google Home device or one of the Android smartphones that offers Google Assistant. The integrations will be fully available by this summer.

This is the latest of many integrations we've seen between connected Internet of Things devices and personal assistants. In most cases, these IoT integrations are with Amazon's Alexa, which is now facing growing competition from Google's relatively new Assistant. Anyone familiar with controlling home items using Alexa will find it largely the same when using Alexa.

If you own Lutron's Caseta Wireless system, you'll be able to use the new Google Assistant integration as of today — anyone with the other two aforementioned products will have to wait until this upcoming June to get the integration. Once it arrives, though, users will be able to do things like dim their home's lights by saying, 'OK Google, dime the living room lights.'

There are many benefits to such hands-free control; you don't have to get out of bed to turn the light off, for example, nor do you have to walk across the room if you're busy doing something else. Even better, this connectivity means you'll be able to control you home's lights even if you're not at home (as long as there's an Internet connection, of course), and it'll blend seamlessly with other automated home elements that support Google Assistant.