You walk into your home theater room or the living room with you bowl of popcorn and your favorite drink and sit in your favorite chair to watch the big game, movie or another hour of 24! You reach over for the the universal remote which controls all your components except one! The lights!

Sure it would be healthier to get up walk over to the light switch and dim the lights by hand. However, this is a tech blog and there must be a way to do it without having to move from your comfy spot. It’s called the “Maestro IR.” The folks at Lutron have come up with a infrared remote control light switch that can replace your existing dimmer control.

There are other dimmers out there and even other dimmers with remote controls such as the X-10 system. What I really like about this one is “one button.” You see the round center button on the remote control? You can program that button to a specific light level and no matter where the light level currently is, from off to full on, you can hit that button to get the lights to your desired level without having to look at the remote. The remote can also turn the lights on/off or dim them. If you’re already standing at the switch you have the same controls of on/off and dim. When you turn the lights on or off from the switch it even remembers the level that they were last at, so when you turn them on again they return to that level.

I had a remote before this one and after every movie I watched I would have to tell everyone in the room to cover your eyes because the lights are coming on. The old remote I had would go from dim or off to full blast with no choices in between. With the Maestro IR I can set the level to a nice cozy low level to bring the lights up to after a movie so that you can see without being blinded.

Because it’s Infrared based you can even program the controls into your universal remote. Now one remote can control everything including your lights.

The Maestro is easy enough to install and only requires a screw driver to do the installation. However, if the fear of electrocution is in your mind, have a licensed electrician do it for you. I picked up the Maestro IR from Home Depot. You can also find them in various places online. Just do a google search. It’s usually in the $40 range.