Lutron Maestro Motion Sensor Light Switch Indoor for Bathroom, Garage, Laundry Room, Any Bulbs, Occupancy Vacancy Sensor, Single-Pole, MS-OPS2-WH, White

This review is for: Lutron Maestro Motion Sensor Switch | 2 Amp, Single Pole | MS-OPS2H-2-WH | White (2-Pack) The purchase price at the time I made it was $35 with tax, in June 2023. It is normally over $50, so I would recommend waiting for a holiday sale if possible. I installed this in two locations, my laundry room (for obvious reasons) and a small walled room that just has a toilet alone, situated within a master bathroom. These switches were installed in a newly built home where the builders, for whatever reason, went "balls to the wall" on those cheap toggle switches in every corner under the sun. I suppose it's understandable, and didn't complete the removal and install process overmuch, other than I would recommend having a thin, long metal pin or those foldout pocket screwdrivers with multi-heads, which can be used to push the pin into the back of the toggle switches to remove wiring from them. Tools recommended: + AC/DC voltage tester + flathead screwdriver + metal pin or multi-head pocket screwdriver with a long, thin head (for existing toggle switches) + wire pliers for straightening wires -- not needed, can also use your fingers with a t-shirt or a cloth as a layer of protection to straighten out curled wires + wing-nut wire connectors for wire-nutting wires in box (should be included) Installation steps (which were performed): + Turn off power at the circuit breaker. Recommend having lights on and one person stand in the room with switch, so that they can yell down at you when the lights go off, and you know which switch at the CB is associated with the install location. + Remove wall plate with flat-head screw driver. Remove top/bottom screws of target replacement switch and gently pull it out. Take out Voltage Tester and confirm that current is off -- both black/red wires should not result in a *beep* sound from the VT. If no sound, all is good. + Use metal pin or a thin-head screwdriver and insert in hole in back. Once they go all the way inside, wire should be easy to remove. For the wires curled around screws instead, use screwdriver to loosen those screws, and "uncurl" those wires with a wire plier or like I did, use a t-shirt to wrap your fingers and then straighten them that way. + Make a note of where the red and black wires are coming from -- there should be a wire bundle with tons of similar wires wing-nutted together. Remove the wing nut from each bundle and try to add either of the switch's black wires to it. Cinch them together with existing wing-nut wire connector. If too many wires, as in my case, then disregard that approach. Cap off existing wire bundle. Use included orange wing-nut connectors to tie the existing switch's black/red wire with either of the new Lutron switch's black wire. Twist and cap them off. Use gentle force to shove them into an empty, unoccupied space near the back of the box. + For newer homes, your box should have neutral wires. Disregard black/red wire bundle. Disregard the bare copper wire bundle (wires with no sleeves) -- these are ground wires. The only remaining wire bundle is your neutral wires. These should normally have white sleeves. Remove the existing wing-nut connector, remove the green sleeve from the new Lutron switch, and tie in the white switch wire along with the existing white wires in the bundle. Cap them off. Again, if too many wires, use the included wing-nut connector instead. + Find bare copper (exposed) wire from the existing switch, and group that with the new Lutron switch's bare metal (exposed) wire, which should be at the top. Cap that off, and stick the new bundle at the back of the box. + Now use flathead screwdriver to tighten top/bottom screws into the new Lutron switch -- can use existing switch's screws if preferred. Might need to "force" the switch to fit into the box, but not too much -- remember, this is why positioning the wire bundles into the empty spaces in the back of the box is so helpful. That way, less force is used, and less chance of wires getting crossed and tripping the CB when main power is turned on. + Turn on power at CB. If all is well, circuit won't get shorted out. Try to push the power button on switch. If install was successful, light should turn on. + Finally, turn off power at CB to be safe, and screw the wall plate back onto the wall. If your Lutron switch was replacing a toggle switch -- as mine was -- you will need to invest in a rocker switch wall plate, or a 1-rocker 1-toggle wall plate if you have a 2-gang wall plate as I did. + Turn back power on the CB. + To setup Custom settings, Lutron recommends to leave wall plate removed. In my case, I just needed to update the default timeout from 5 minutes to 1 minute, to save on electricity costs. Thus, it was fine for me to have the wall plate on. In my case, I pressed and held the big button on the new Lutron switch, until it blinked twice, then I released it. I turned it on and off three times fast, then stepped out of the room for about 5 minutes. Once I stepped back inside, the light turned off with a click, and turned off after 1 minute of no motion detected. Seems all is in order! As mentioned, I got the 2-pack and installed the motion switches in two locations. The first location is my laundry room, where the switch is facing in same direction as person entering, so obviously 180 degrees of motion detection is preferable. In practice, I get ~150 degrees of detection, which is good enough as the light turns on with a *click* as soon as I walk into the laundry room. This is helpful if I or someone else is holding a laundry bag or hamper full of clothes, as I don't need to free a hand to fiddle with the light switch -- it just gracefully turns on as soon as I enter, and turns off just as gracefully as soon as I exit the room. This works out perfect for me, and all involved. The second install location is a small cubicle-style room with only a toilet. This room is always dark no matter the time of day as there are no windows in this small enclosure. Further, it is located inside a master bathroom. The switch is facing again in the same direction as the person entering the room, and is a 2-gang with a switch for the bathroom fan. I got a 3-pack of 2-gang wall plates (1 rocker and 1 toggle openings) and installed one of them here. The wall plate looks really good, and in practice the motion switch functions really well. It turns on as soon as someone enters (no need to waste time fiddling with the light) and gracefully turns off after 1 minute of them exiting or no motion being detected, whichever is first. This is excellent and works for my use case, and I fully expect it to translate it into a slightly lower monthly power bill. Huzzah. All in all, highly satisfied with the 2-pack of Lutron motion sensing light switches, and I have installed them in two single-pole light switch locations. I have had them for a few months now, and there are absolutely no problems. I am extremely satisfied with their performance and they have saved time and money most definitely, because even if someone "forgets" to turn off the lights, they are never on overnight, which is excellent in my books. In short, I highly recommend the Lutron brand of light switches for motion detection and automation purposes, especially in a use case such as mine. Installation is relatively straightforward, and you don't need to be a licensed electrician to install one -- though knowledge of electrical wiring certainly helps. Check it out, I guarantee that you won't be disappointed!

Finding the right switch was like a search for the Holy Grail. I installed 2 different switches in 2 different ways for each trying to make it work. Major issue was trying to figure out what switch to buy, so I will lay it out in a very simple "Electrical Connections for Dummies" kind of way. Disclaimer: the wiring in your home may be different from mine, so please use this advice at your own risk. My situation: Laundry room leading to the garage with doored entrance on both ends. 2 switches, one on each end of the laundry room. My want: To have the laundry room light turn on automatically when I enter the laundry room from the garage or from the house and turn off automatically after a couple of minutes The solution: This switch and the below instructions 1. Turn off your power to the switches at the fuse box 2. Take off all the wires from both switches and separate them. My switch has 4 wires: 2 black (1-hot, 1-traveler), 1 red (traveler) and 1 bare wire (ground) Note: If you have white wires in there, then those should be your neutral wires and should already be tied off to another white neutral to complete the circuit (don't worry about these) 3. Buy a hot wire detector (like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Fluke-1AC-A1-II-Volt-Alert-Non-Contact-Voltage/dp/B000EJ332O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336776918&sr=8-1) from Amazon. I bought one at Home Depot for about $14. 4. Turn on power to the switches at the fuse box - please make sure that nobody is going to come wandering in and touch the open wires 5. Take the hot wire detector and place it near every wire from both switches. Once you find the hot wire, then label it as "hot". This is the wire that is connected to your fuse box, and this is where you HAVE TO connect the regular switch. You CANNOT put the Motion switch on this end - Update: Someone commented that you can, but just stating what the installation instructions showed in the diagram. 6. Turn off your power to the switches again at the fuse box 7. Take the "hot" wire and screw-tap with one of the travelers which you will label as "Traveler A" 8. Turn on your power to the switches at the fuse box 9. Use hot wire detector to find the live traveler wire on the other end (where the motion switch will go) 10. Label that live wire as "Traveler A" 11. Turn off your power to the switches at the fuse box 12. Repeat step 7-10 for the other traveler wire but label wires as "Traveler B" 13. The remaining wire at the Motion switch end is the "load" wire that connects to the laundry room light 14. From here you should be able to follow the instructions of the Motion light switch fairly easily. Only thing that may seem confusing is connecting the wires at the regular switch - you have to take the separate wire included with the motion switch and connect that to the black screw of the regular switch and then screw-tap it with the "hot" wire and one of the traveler wires. After that, the motion switch connections are straightforward. This switch allows you to do the following: - Adjust motion detection sensitivity (regular and extra-sensitive) - Adjust time to auto off (15 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes, 15 minutes and 30 minutes - can't remember exact increments since I only wanted 1 minute). - Make it auto-on (what I needed) or manual-on switch with auto-off - Turn off the lights manually either at the regular switch end or on the motion switch end, and it will reset itself for auto-on (takes about 20 seconds to reset itself) - Able to use with CFL or better known as fluorescent bulbs - which is what I have. Great switch and fits my needs perfectly. I have found the Holy Grail. Good Luck! UPDATE 4/8/13: Well, it's been about a year since I installed this switch, and it is still working like a charm. Very sensitive motion detector which is what I wanted so it will instantly turn on upon entry from the house or from the garage. One of the better home improvement projects that I have done. The other ones are timer switches on my bathroom exhaust fans. It's these little things that make your house a home. I am glad this review helped some people out there since it aggravated me to no end spending many hours trying to get the right switch to work. Will keep the light on for you.....or not. UPDATE 9/8/15: Still running like a champ after over 3 years in service. Some have asked about being able to install the motion detectors on both ends (i.e. at bottom and top of stairs). Unfortunately, I am not an electrician which is why my review was more for electrical dummies like me; thus, I cannot advise or recommend doing anything custom with these switches. I only "go by the book" with my home's wiring since I am too chicken to risk burning my home to the ground. For those who are certified electricians and can advise on these custom questions, then please help a brother / sister out. Peace, love and.......light. UPDATE 12/18/16: Still running and working as installed over 4 years ago. Switched my bulbs from CFLs to LEDs since the CFLs seems to burnout quickly with the repeated on/off in this high-traffic area. I can confirm that it works fine with LED bulbs also, and the LEDs last much longer (have not needed to change either of the 2 bulbs for the last 6 months). Merry Christmas to all! UPDATE 5/11/2022: 10 Years to this day!!! And still working like a champ! Need I say more?

I have the 250w single pole (MS-OPS2-WH) and the 600w 3-way (MS-OPS5M-WH), so this review is for both. I've had these for about a month and I am very happy with them. I put one in an entry way and it is very convenient when walking in at night. I put the other one in a laundry room and that works well when carrying the laundry in. I'm no electrician, but they were easy for me to install. Just follow the instructions and be sure you understand everything you're doing. If you don't understand, watch more youtube videos or hire an electrician. I bought a non-contact voltage tester (fluke brand) to be sure that there was no current in any of the lines while I was working on them. You will also probably need a new switch plate. These do require a ground wire, so check that you have one in the switch box before buying. This is usually a bare copper wire. If you don't have one, this switch may not be worth the hassle of getting one put in. I have them set to auto on and auto off after 1 minute. They always come on right when I enter the room and I've never seen one turn on without someone in the room. One of them is pointed towards a window that has trees blowing in the wind and birds flying by, so it is just the right sensitivity. The sensitivity can be changed to a lower level from the default. They can also be changed to manual on and auto off for situations where you still want to control the light, but want to make sure it is not left on. They are supposed to not turn on if there is enough sunlight, but I have not experienced this. They turn on every time. The rooms I have them in don't get much sunlight, so maybe it just thinks they are always dark enough. It is also supposed to learn how much sunlight is too much by you manually turning it off, but I haven't noticed that either. Maybe they just need more time. There is an audible click when they turn on and off. It is not much louder than flipping a normal light switch. I believe this is because they use a relay to turn the power on and off. This is good because some other brands use a technique that still sends a small amount of current to the light when turned off. This usually causes issues with fluorescent and LED lights. This is not a problem with the Lutron switches and they should work with all lights. I am using them with CFL's and larger florescent lights without any problems. MS-OPS2-WH specific information: This is the one you want if your light is operated by one switch and is less than 250 watts. Besides being cheaper, the on/off click is slightly quieter than the 600w switch. MS-OPS5M-WH specific information: This is for 3-way (two switches for one light) and/or more than 250w, but less than 600w. I used this one to retain the operation of the other regular switch, even though it doesn’t get used anymore. To add this into a 3-way set up, you will need an additional wire nut that is not included for the regular switch. One tip for testing it: You can not use the test setting (15 second timeout) to test the operation of regular switch. Once you use either switch, it resets back to five minutes. You may get some odd behavior if you try using the motion sensor at the same time as the regular switch, but for the most part, either switch can turn the light on or off. As mentioned above, the on/off click is slightly louder than the 250w switch. Some other reviewers have had success with using two of these switches in a 3-way setup, but it is not officially supported.

RESEARCH AND DECISION I purchased a Leviton occupancy sensor (PR180-1LW) from the local Home Depot a couple weeks ago for a recessed LED light in my laundry closet, I didn't install it, and the next day my wife and I went to purchase a dimmer switch for another set of recessed LED lights in our hall. While searching through the dimmers we found a plain looking Lutron switch with dimmer (TGCL-153PH-WH) that worked with the LED lights. At that time it dawned on me that I forgot to check if the PR180-1LW worked with LED lights, checked packaging when I got home and found that it didn't. I returned it and looked to see if they had one that worked with LED lights, they didn't, I went to Lowes, they also didn't have one, so came to Amazon and found this Lutron (MS-OPS2-WH) which after watching the video seemed to be a great choice for the same price as the one I returned with more options. ORDER AND DELIVERY I placed the order for this occupancy sensor on a Tuesday morning via Amazon Prime, order was picked and shipped the next day, and delivered the day after as expected with 2 day shipping. Packaging was in perfect condition and nothing was damaged. Packaging was easy to open and instructions were included in the retail packaging. REPLACING OLD UNIT AND INSTALLATION I purchased this occupancy sensor to replace a SensorPlug Motion Sensor (also great for plug-in lights) that plugs into a socket which we had a florescent tube shop light plugged into. It is still working perfect, but I decided to install a recessed LED and in-wall motion sensor. Since I started from scratch I wired in series from an existing socket to the switch, and from the switch up the wall, through the ceiling to the light. I also added an outlet box where the occupancy sensor would reside. I did this before the switch arrived, and installed a temporary switch in the mean time. Once the sensor arrived all I had to do was switch the breaker off, test to ensure no power was going through, then twist the sensor wires on. The green and bare wire twist to ground, and the black wires twist one to the light and the other to the live line. The installation of everything else took maybe 30 minutes, and the switch itself, maybe 5 min (including the time it took to remove the old one. SETTINGS AND USAGE Once installed, there are several settings you can choose from which are explained thoroughly in the video on Amazon's product page. One setting is for manual on/off, one is for occupancy mode which turns light on when motion is detected and off when no motion is detected for a give time (can also be set to stay off if light is detected), and the last mode is vacancy mode in which you turn the light on manually and it turns off when no motion is detected for a given time. You can also set the duration that no motion is detected before switch turns off: default time is 5 minutes, there is also a setting for 1 minute, 15 minutes, or 30 minutes. There is also a test mode that has a timeout of 15 seconds but only lasts 5 minutes at a time. Since I use it in a laundry closet, I set it to a 1 minute timeout which works out great. It is very simple to set the timeout, you do this by holding the main button and releasing after a certain amount of flashes from the motion sensor. Since the default mode is occupancy mode, I didn't have to change this (although I tested the others), but it is simple to change, all you have to do is remove the face plate and hold the main button and release after a certain number of flashes of the motion sensor. I didn't need the light sensing setting because there is never enough light in my closet to find things. FINAL THOUGHTS The Lutron occupancy sensor works well with my recessed LED light and does exactly as it says it does. Since the laundry closet door blocks the natural light, I need the sensor to turn the light on whenever I open the doors and it does this. It then turns off the light after 1 minute, so when my hands are full with the laundry basket, I can just bump the door with my hip to close it and viola. It is fantastic and it's exactly what I wanted. Although I don't need more time for the timeout, I have good options. Most likely I won't use the manual, vacancy, or light sensing modes, it's nice to have the option for the future. I fully recommend this product if you want a method of turning your lights off and on when you enter or leave a room. For me it doesn't have the full 180 degree line-of-sight because it is being blocked partially by a drawer, but it works great even so.

This motion sensor switch was an upgrade from a similar brand we had before. I much prefer that this brand has the button override instead of a slide switch, there's less confusion for guests who aren't expecting a motion sensor in the bathroom. The old brand we had with the slide left people moving the override from "Motion" to "Off" kinda defeating the purpose of a motion sensor. (If you're wondering why we don't have a normal switch in the bathroom its because we have kiddos who can never seem to turn anything off...) Installation was straightforward, though the unconnected thin wire caused a bit of confusion until I checked a YouTube video. I do wish there were more timing options (a 2–3 minute setting would be perfect, your options are 1,5,15, or 30 minutes), but overall it works reliably and is a solid 4-star product.

I bought two of these switches, one for a hallway that has a switch on each end (the far end can see all of the short hallway, so a single occupancy sensor there works just fine) and one for a hallway with three switches - at the entrance to the hallway, and at each of the bedroom doors (yes, the builders of this house loved their four-way switches!) The first switch went in easy as can be, simply following the directions on the box. The only caveat is that in the remaining mechanical three-way switch, where it wants you to join the black "in" and the black "out", it does not provide a large wire nut to do so. I had a wire nut and so could just use my own. An alternate method would be to wire both the in and the out to the single screw if it does, as mine does, support two equal-sized wires going in. Either way, it wasn't a significant hiccup in installation. I spent more time trying to pop wires out of the simple insert-in-hole quick wire pieces of the switch I needed to remove than in wiring the new one in. On the second, I had thought I would be able to use the existing mechanical three-way and four-way switches, but after wiring everything together realized that half of the combinations would never work no matter how the two switches were wired together. So, long story short, if you have three or more switches on a single light load, you WILL need to replace ALL the other switches with "Maestro Companion" switches. One piece of good news that I found is that while the "dimmer" companion switches are inexplicably $10 cheaper both here on Amazon and at my local Home Depot, the "dimmer" companion switches work just fine with the non-dimming occupancy sensor master switch (this puppy). At some point I might replace this second sensor with a dimming sensor and move this sensor to a different room or hallway, and will still end up significantly ahead. With this wiring setup in place, I set the occupancy sensor to one-minute timeout, auto-on with daylight sensing, and everything works beautifully. The instructions for the companion sensors indicate that the "master" switch can be located in any of the existing switches - replacing the "mains end" 3-way, replacing the "load end" 3-way, or replacing any of the 4-way switches in between. I replaced one of the two three-way switches with the master switch and the companions went to the other end and the four-way. - Actual Review - I actually bought two of these, one for use in a standard two-switch hallway, and one for use in the above-described three-switch hallway. The two-switch installation was quick and simple, simply following the directions on the included instruction sheet. I did find that there was one fewer large wire nut in the packaging than was actually needed to alter the "standard switch" to perform to spec (all three large nuts were used in installing the new switch, and one more was needed to alter the old switch), but that is a minor oversight. Just plan ahead and have an extra large wire nut handy when installing (or jump the black traveler to main using a different approach). In both cases, once installed, setup was very simple. I wanted auto-on/auto-off with daylight sensing on both, and with high motion sensitivity. Before putting the face plate back on (but with power on), as per the instructions I held the "second" button (the little button to the right of the switch which is hidden when the face plate is installed) until the sensor light blinked three times, and they were set to have daylight sensing enabled. I then held the main button (the light switch button itself) until it blinked twice to set the auto-off timer to one minute (the shortest duration) so the hallway lights turn off soon after people have left the hallway. These are our fifth and sixth Lutron occupancy sensors (the other four were simple two-way switches for rooms), and they have all been very reliable for us. The switch itself is less garish than some occupancy sensors, and generally looks just fine in the multi-gang decora switch boxes that are throughout the house. Easy install; flawless operation; feature set which matches our needs. I can't take any stars away, so this gets five stars.

I replaced a 15 year old motion sensor in my garage with this new Lutron unit. My old unit would cut off when I was in the garage. I would have to walk up In total darkness and wave at it to get it to turn back on. This new unit is incredibly sensitive no matter where I am in the garage it sees me and turns on the light I couldn't be more satisfied. I tested it by standing behind each of the two cars in a garage waiting for the light to shut off and then if I raised my hand above the car it would see it from 25 feet away. If I took a step to the side of either car it was see me. The unit is very impressive! The only corrective comment I would have is that there were no instructions on how to program it in the box I called Lutron on your customer service number and a young man explained to me the programming technique which is really very simple as long as you know it.

works well. installed one in pantry and one in master closet. love the ability to walk in and light turns on. was easy to install. good directions