UK Wall Switch

General Discussion
1

Can anyone recommend a UK certified and also Smartthings working wall light switch?

Thanks

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3

Thank you for your reply. However I’ve already looked at this and couldn’t see an actual wall switch,just the inserts behind.

4

@deano12 That’s pretty much how this works. You change the switch behind the faceplate so that you can keep matching faceplates around the house

5

I believe Dean is referring to the micro relays which fit inside the switchbox. This setup still uses the original switch and the faceplate, the two pieces one can see from the room.

In the US, one also has a choice of switches where the relay part is built into the switch piece that one sees from the room. The faceplate Remains a separate piece. There are as yet none of this style device on the UK compatible list.

6

This - Yet again JD you have figured out my giberish. It is such a shame really, as if I went for the Micro Relays, I would have to replace every switch faceplate in the house with a momentary faceplate/switch just so that the Relays would function correctly.

I appreciate all the replies, its yet again a shame that the UK seems to fall behind with almost every aspect of modern technology, yet places like GCHQ are the worst when it comes to snooping in the world.

Lets hope companies start expanding their product range over here soon!

Thanks all!

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7

In addition to this, I guess once oAuth is fixed, I could get some old 7inch tablets and wall mount then, and just use something like smarttiles as my new wall sockets + use either Hue or LIFX bulbs instead, leave the originals in place as dead switches for cutting the power to the sockets (also means when/if we move in future I dont have to rip the house apart getting my HA tech back!)

Can pick Gen1 Nexus7’s up for sub £50 these days… Might be an option. Not sure the Mrs would like that idea, but… ahhh she can just come home from work one day and they’ll all be installed. Not much she can do about it then :smile:

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8

@deano12 you’re not on about these are you:
http://www.uk-automation.co.uk/z-wave-automation/z-wave-lighting-control/

They will probably need coding into SmartThings though I would imagine

9

Thank you! This is what I was on about! Z Wave 2 Button Touch Panel Switch by MCO Home - UK Automation

Shame its only white, and shame about the price! Thought they would be a lot cheaper than that over here… Then again I forgot, this is the UK!

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10

The only thing you need to watch for is:

A neutral wire is required for this switch

I’ve just replaced all my switches in my house, and there wasn’t a neutral wire in sight

11

How did you get around that then?

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I didn’t. Sorry, I was replacing them with normal switches, and was just an observation.

I’m not sure how to get around it. It might be that switches in the USA use a live and a neutral, however in the UK we call them COM and L1/L2 etc. I’m not even sure how a neutral wire would be used in a switch…

It’s probably because the smart switch requires power itself, and without a neutral wire, it can’t be live 24/7 as there is no return

1 Like
13

How about using one of these instead?

14

These are great, however…

If you’re house is older than 3/4 years old, or your builders/electricians had no foresight then I can tell you now that these will NOT fit. We’ve just had our electricians explain this exact situation, and for that reason they are fitting 38mm backboxes in every new installation they can where possible.

Standard backboxes used are normally 25mm, and these devices are 17mm deep. That leaves a whopping 8mm to get your faceplate on, as well as the wires and components which is almost impossible to do.

I was going down this route, but have had to forget it, they wont fit unless I take the backbox out and drill out a bigger hole in the wall

15

This did confuse me when I was looking at switches. This guide illustrates the differences between the more common UK 2-wire system, compared to the rarer 3-wire system required by most smart switches:

Understanding 2-wire and 3-wire Lighting Systems @vesternet

At the bottom of the article, it suggests using a z-wave “dimmer” as a workaround (probably what @Deleted_Username implied) if you do have 2-wire lighthing in your house…

As for the size of the back boxes, that was one of my concerns too. The smallest readily available one seems to be the Philio Tech at 15mm, but I can imagine that is still pushing it in terms of fitting.

16

Well, in my house which is 20 years old, I’ve got the standard 25mmm backbox. I’ve just had down lights and dimmers put in and I’ve had to have half the back boxes swapped out to 30mm to accomodate the dimmer modules

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It seems you can get them to fit in 25mm but like you say its a bit of a squeeze!

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I dont really agree with that - I found that the 25mm backbox does not hold the Fibaro universal dimmer. I had to fit the 44mm backbox. With the Fibaro dimmer inserted (20mm) and the faceplate takes about 15mm into the socket you do need something close 40+mm.

Next thing everyone needs to know about is that you either have a 2 wire or 3 wire lighting system. Older houses will undoubtedly have 2 wire. For this you will need

19

On the subject of switches…

Could the following be fitted at the light fitting (live & neutral here) in between the junction for the ring of lights and the actual fitting?

(these are cheaper than the fibaro ones)

Then the wall switch would work as normal and the controller could work via Smartthings hub?

Obviously it would need to be paired prior to re-attaching the light fitting but it “should” fit in most UK light fittings judging by the dimensions (its pretty thin at only 18mm)

Assuming my theory is correct I feel this is the way to have automated functionality and keep the wife/guests able to use the switch manually.

Only question - would the lights still work even if the wall switch was turned off? I guess not? Apologies for highjacking a thread but I am looking for lighting control first and foremost and would rather not populate my house with lots of lamps just because there isn’t a solution for the main lights in the UK

20

Yes it will work, in fact one of the manuals for one other other manufacturers suggests this as an option.

If wired properly the module will operate even if the wall switch is turned off. The switch simply becomes an input for the module to use as a trigger to operate a relay to bring power to the light.