Can Lutron Telume switches be placed beside each other but operated seperately by infra red? i.e. will switch 2 and 3 come on when I want to switch on 1 by remote, or can they be programmed to operate seperately?
No. they cannot be operated separately. They use the same IR codes so you will need to share the number of scenes between the multiple units. (Well, this was the case when I looked in to buying some about 9 months ago).