Lutron Maestro Fan Control and Light Dimmer for Dimmable LEDs, Incandescent, and Halogen Bulbs, Single-Pole, MACL-LFQ-WH, White

I bought this for a ceiling fan with a light that can dim. Not a ton of these on the market that fit the look I was going for, so while expensive, it also has a lack of competition in this space, so I guess it's worth it. Anyway, pros and cons Pros 1. Easy enough to install if you've done this sort of thing before. If not, call an electrician. 2. Looks nice. 3. Functions correctly. Top button controls light, button controls fan, and the various levels all work correctly. 4. Unless otherwise disturbed, we haven't had any issues with ours. No flickering, no weird dimming behaviors. Everything works fine. Cons 1. It's expensive. $50 for a light switch is a lot to swallow. Especially when... 2. It's not particularly durable. My brother run law visited and my nephew (aged 3) got a solid punch on this thing when our backs were turned, which broke it. I don't blame Lutron for this specifically, but the kid has smacked a regular light switch too and it still works (he doesn't do it out of anger, he's too short to see what he's hitting lol), so this isn't suitable for environments with small children. I did buy this a second time and installed it again, and the new one works fine too. Fortunately, the little guy has since been taught not to do that, so hopefully this one lasts longer than the 3 years the prior one lasted. In all, I like it quite a lot. It's functional and looks nice. Just keep it away from kids who like to swing their arms around lol.

Overall this light switch worked as intend as I broke the last one I had. To sum up below, to works as intended and the cons I do have, have solutions for them, just not the way I thought they would so cons for me but maybe not others. Pros: - Simple On/Off for light and fan individually. - Fit standard outlet box (a little tight). - Instructions were fine/simple. - Fit underneath standard rectangle plate cover (so didnt have to purchase a new one) - Love how the buttons take priority and the adjustments are small off to the side. I mainly turn on and off the lights or fans (only adjust it seldomly). - The light setting has like 10 different levels which for some could be nice. - Can press and hold to "rapidly" increase light through all the settings. Cons: - The lights on the panel shine through other holes (only a problem when it is "off") so it is kinda hard to tell what the current setting it is on. Is it half way or 1/4 the way? *BUT* When it is "on", the light current setting will light up alot brighter. So like I said only a real problem if its "off". - (Might be my fault) When setting the lowest level of light, I went REALLY low so now "max level" is like a little dimmer than before. I need to redo the setting, but not a priority as the light still shines. So test out a couple settings before hand. - The push buttons for the levels just seem..cheap? annoying? Idk, but since I only adjust the level once in a blue moon its defintely not that big of a deal to me. If you use it all the time might want to go with something that was built more for constant adjusting instead of adjusting every now and again. So for its purpose not a true "con" for me, but a con just in the way it feels. - Not wireless/wifi/app controlled

I recently had a ceiling fan installed and opted for a rather generic switch from Amazon. Very disappointed because the switch would not dim an LED light, which it claimed to do. Then I replaced it with this Lutron Maestro Fan Control and Light Dimmer. What a difference! This is a high-quality switch that works perfectly with the LED bulb in the Westinghouse fan. Light dims about 90% which is what I need. Fan controls are easy to use. Best part is the switch installed quickly and easily. Super easy instructions and markings on the switch that tell you which wire is for the fan and which is for the light. It's a little more expensive than the generics but really, not a big deal. This is the perfect single-pole switch for a ceiling fan. Oh, and it looks good too.

BOTTOM LINE > Does the job, but there are minor design tradeoffs. That is, some of the touted "features" have small drawbacks. > Depending on your circumstances, dimmable LED bulbs may work just as well for you with your "legacy" "incandescent" dimmers and controllers. > Depending on your circumstances, you may find that incandescent bulbs work better for you, with either a "legacy" dimmer, or with this dimmer. PROS > Works with any kind of ordinary dimmable lightbulb -- incandescent, halogen, or LED (with caveats). > Don’t be freaked by the warnings that the Maestro “requires special wiring”. As long as you have two different wires, one for the fan (usually red or yellow), and another for the light (usually red or yellow), plus a (usually black) “hot” wire, you can use a Maestro. > Fits even in old metal single electrical boxes (Note that a Pass & Seymour wall outlet with a built-in night-light, that I purchased recently, would NOT fit into the boxes in my home without shorting out). > Don't be freaked by the offer of "free Amazon Tech Support". The Maestro installed easily and worked the first time. If you've ever installed a wall receptacle or light switch, you can install the Maestro with no problems --- as long as you connect the fan to the fan controller circuit and the light to the light dimmer circuit > Easy setup and operation – easier than the instructions imply. Really, as simple, logical, and easy as it could possibly be. > The ability to preset light and fan levels (and easily change/override the presets at any time), and just tap on / tap off the light or fan is a very welcome feature. But it would be more welcome if the dimmer could dim standard dimmable LED bulbs to actually "dim" levels. > In some circumstances dimmable LED bulbs can flicker when used with "legacy" dimmers (that is, dimmers designed for use with incandescent bulbs). The Maestro theoretically eliminates such flicker. I never have a problem with flickering either with legacy dimmers nor the Maestro -- so, I cannot confirm nor deny any improvement with the Maestro. CONS > The Maestro on/off switch has very little tactile/auditory feedback, unlike the strong positive feedback of a wall switch, dial, or slider. This is exacerbated by a "ramp down" circuit for the light switch. That is, you have to wait for the delayed effect to know that you have actually succeeded in turning-off the light. Fortunately, it took me only about a week to get used to this -- now I don't notice, and have no problem -- albeit I sometimes inadvertently "double tap" when trying to turn off the light as I leave a room, which has no net effect (i.e., the light stays on). > The control panel was obviously designed to be visually "unobtrusive", but that also means that the on/off buttons have low visibility in low light (even though dimly lit with tiny green LEDs). The buttons are also nearly flush with the wall plate and therefore are hard to find or distinguish by touch in the dark) -- indeed, I installed a small clear "stick-on" furniture bumper on the light switch so that I can readily find it in the dark by touch. > Commendably, there is a list of dimmable LED lightbulbs which work with the Maestro dimmer on the Lutron website . Unfortunately, I could not find ANY bulbs on the list. Apparently, LED lightbulb manufacturers give new serial numbers to every batch of bulbs they manufacture -- or at least to every minor update and variation. So, it is still a crap shoot whether particular LED lightbulbs and dimmers are compatible. Fortunately, these days, most "dimmable" bulbs are probably compatible. NEUTRAL OBSERVATIONS > The MINIMUM light level the Maestro could provided with Sylvania 74691 or with Sylvania 72978 LED bulbs, (both the equivalent of 125 incandescent bulbs), or "Great Eagle 100W Equivalent" bulbs, was about the equivalent of a 40watt incandescent bulb. I had the same experience with a Lutron Credenza LED dimmer for my floor-lamp. Neither dimmer, with and of the three "dimmable LED" bulbs, dims to a truly low level. The dimming range is so limited that I virtually never use the dimming feature. Think of the "dimmer" as an on/off switch with the option of a very limited range preset light levels. Since the power usage of LED bulbs is so low at any level, there is very little incentive to dim the bulbs to save energy. Unfortunately, with the Maestro and LED bulbs, dimming to a truly low restful level (such as to watch TV, or listen to music, or for "romantic time") is impossible. > With a manual slide or dial controller, the fan motor starts at high, and lowers to the desired level (which is the way electrical motors should be started for maximum life – particularly if you allow a second or two for the fan to get up to speed before lowering it). With the Maestro fan speed switch set to a moderate level, my fan comes up to speed slowly, but doesn't make "straining" noises doing so, and the fan doesn't make buzzing noises at any power level. So the Maestro is more convenient, and perhaps "better", for ceiling fans than dial or slider controllers. The fan speed control of the Maestro offers a full range of speeds -- i.e., the minimum speed really is very slow. > The Maestro will work with incandescent (and halogen, etc) bulbs, and can dim them to truly low illumination levels. INSTALLATION SUGGESTIONS > Follow the printed instructions that come with the dimmer. > The circuits for the light and the fan are different. You MUST use the light dimmer circuit for the light, and the fan controller circuit for the fan. I strongly suspect that most of the 1 star reviews are from knuckleheads who didn't bother to read the instructions and wired the fan to the light dimmer circuit and visa-versa. It would help if Lutron labeled the wires (as they used to) -- but that would probably violate Amzn's insistence on "international packaging". > If you are replacing an existing dimmer, mark the wires for the fan and the light BEFORE you disconnect them from the old dimmer (on mine, both the fan and light wires [in my wall] were red). The fan and light wires on the Maestro are different colors (red and yellow), but are otherwise unidentified – so it is a very good idea to mark them also. I use a 2"-length of 1"-wide white masking tape, folded around the wire to make a label. Using a Sharpie, mark "F" for fan and "L" for light. If in doubt, take a photo with your cell phone of the exiting dimmer with the wires attached (before you attempt to remove the old dimmer). > Do NOT assume that your electrician has used the same color scheme as Lutron. If you aren't sure which wire is for the fan and which is for the light, disconnect ONE of them, and test -- then LABEL. > The hot terminal (for the black wire) on the Maestro is NOT supplied with a wire. It is on the side of the fixture. It is a bit recessed, and PROBABLY will not short out even a skinny metal box, but I would cover any exposed section of the hot wire and the terminal screw with electrical tape anyway. > Even though accessory wall plates for the Maestro are sold, any standard white “decora” wall plate will work just fine. My old white wall plate was a perfect match. You need a "white" plate, not a "cream" plate. > There is a green ground wire, which you should connect if your house wiring has grounding wires (particularly if your house has plastic electrical boxes and conduits). If you have metal boxes and conduits, your fixtures are PROBABLY adequately grounded without using grounding wires. The Maestro will operate without the green ground wire connected. But, if you've got a grounding wire, use it. > What if you don't have a separate wire for the fan light? -- well, you are out of luck -- the Maestro will NOT be able to control the fan light. Initially, I didn't have a separate wire for my fans, so I purchased fans with wireless controllers. But, over a span of several years, all the receiver units in all of my fans died -- and I could not buy replacement receivers. So, I had an electrician pull an extra wire to each circuit for the fan lights. If you have dead wireless receivers in your fans, it is probably NOT necessary to de-install or bypass the receivers. If you do need to remove the receivers, doing so is usually very easy since they are usually simple add-ons to the base model of the fan. SUGGESTIONS > Note that you can safely use 125W equivalent (or brighter) LED bulbs, even on fixtures designed for a maximum 40W or 60W incandescent bulbs (because of the low load and little heat generated by LEDs). Indeed, for me, the brighter bulbs are actually the main reason to upgrade to LEDs. > If dimmable LED bulbs work well for you (with no or rare flickering) in your old "legacy" dimmers, then there may NOT be a significant advantage to "upgrade" older installations to the Maestro or other LED dimmers. Whether used with "legacy" or LED dimmers, the minimum brightness an LED bulb can deliver is about 30% of the maximum brightness. It is more annoying trying to find the absolute minimum brightness with a slide or dial dimmer -- but when you finally give up on trying to find that "magic" minimum point, it ceases to be an annoyance. I have 6 ceiling fans with lights in my home -- I "upgraded" one of them to a Maestro, and am glad that I did -- but (even though I use LED bulbs in the light fixtures) I haven't bothered to "upgrade" the other 5, because the "improvement" I have experienced is minimal. > If you have a problem with LED bulbs flickering when used with "legacy" "incandescent" dimmers, that is a powerline issue, caused by slight variations in the AC coming into your home (and is just a feature of your local electrical service that you can't do anything about). A Maestro dimmer MAY, or may NOT, improve that problem. > In my experience the Maestro definitely eliminates the buzzing and other noises ceiling fans can make with standard controllers. > ABOUT NOISY FANS (having nothing to do with the Maestro or other fan controllers) -- Sometimes ceiling fans need oil. If you have a legacy (cast iron) Hunter, there is a filling hole for oil (Google it for instructions), otherwise it is difficult to get oil to the shaft. For fans without oil filling holes -- The fan shaft is accessible just below fan blades, just above the light fixture. I tape a Q-Tip to a 12" bamboo skewer, apply household or automotive oil (10W or 10W30, etc) to the Q-Tip, and apply the Q-Tip to the shaft and bearing. Then run the fan on low for, say, 5 minutes for the oil to be drawn upward into the bearing surface. --- I have an 50-year old cast iron Hunter in which became hard to start because the oil had condensed to thick tar-like material. I found that it was impossible to sufficiently disassemble the fan to clean out the thickened oil. If I were to do it again, I'd try to dissolve the thickened oil, perhaps with kerosene (soaking for a week or so), or at least pour out as much of the thickened oil as possible (by setting the fan on its side for several days), and then dilute with the lightest oil I could find, say 5W or 10W. I anycase, if replacing the oil in a Hunter fan, always use a high quality synthetic oil which is less likely to gum-up.

This control is a great one. I was having new ceiling fans installed because I'm extra - the old wall remote stopped working so I figured it was a great time to change the fan and the remote. I read reviews online (other than Amazon ones) and these were still highly recommended. They were a little less expensive than Home Depot with better delivery options! I already had an electrician at my house for other work so he installed the fan and this switch. Watching him, it went in easily. It is easy to use. Dims at good intervals. I like the "sleep" function where it gradually dims prior to turning off allowing me to leave the room and not be in total darkness to stumble to the stairs. The fan speed levels are good as well. However, I don't use the fan in the winter so the real test will come in a month or two when summer comes to Arizona! There is a reason this is such a highly rated switch. It works, easy to use, and easy to install.

I have two light dimmers for can lights and fan switches for ceiling fans in the same 2 gang box. I bought two of these to replace two Hunter 27182 Fan/Light Dual Slide Fan/Light Control which I had for about 10 years. They are similar to the switch shown in my picture on the bottom left. The tabs that attach to the slides are flimsy and come off and eventually broke. I had replaced them and glued them enough and was looking for something better. The Hunters were 23 on Amazon these were 34 which seemed steep for a light switch, but there don't seem to be any moving pieces that can break. They are not super intuitive I can see a guest having an issue figuring them out. There is a push button that turns on the light and fan and it remembers the level you had it at when it was turned on last. There is a long tab on the side of the button that allows you to dim the light which takes longer than a slide up and down. There are actually four settings for the fan which is nice the old one was three. There is an LED that shows you the level of brightness and fan level. When you turn them off they go very dim. Will suck up some energy, but will make it easy to find in the dark. Installation was pretty intuitive as I already had similar switches in the wall so it was just replacing wire for wire. The only issue was these are pretty large behind the switches and it took some wrestling to get them into the boxes. They do not lay completely flat but I got it close enough. Whole thing took me 20-30 minutes. Looks like there is a 2 year warranty if you register these online. The only thing I am worried about is that it says in the manual 'If using CFL or LED bulbs they must be Lutron Compatible." I am still running incandescent lights so this is not currently an issue but I may be in the future. If this becomes a problem I will update my review.

I was able to install this myself as a complete novice to replace a fan control wall switch that broke (wiring was already there). It lets you separately switch on/off, dim lights or change fan speed. I like it.

Lutron makes great products. This double switch was easy to install and well marked for a DIYer. Lutron goes the extra step like having the ground wire already installed. It dims the LED lights perfectly, no flicker. If you set the lights low, they are still at that setting when you turn them back on. I highly recommend this double switch.

Excelente calidad, funciona perfecto. Ideal para dimmear focos leds y controlar un ventilador.

Easy to install, reliable.

installed yesterday... the LED control works great, dont have a fan installed as of yet to verify the speed control, but functionally you can hear the internals working perfectly... and it looks great, not intrusive at all

Está enorme, casi exactamente del tamaño de la chalupa pero un poco más profundo, simplemente no cabe y no deja espacio para los cables. Además, no trae la tapa del interruptor, es el puro switch pelón, tienes que ir a la ferretería a buscar una tapa que le quede.

Facile à l’installation si vous avez trois fils qui mène vers le ventilateur, un pour l’alimentait on du ventilateur, un pour la lumière et le neutre.