One switch per room (almost) in new construction - will it work?

Switches General Discussion
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41

The house was built 30 years ago so I had no input on its design, but I think all the switches make sense. I just happened to run into this company that makes these plates, and I thought it would be helpful for my wife, and I like the way they look.

Nope, complete agreement there. As a general rule, switches only for permanently installed fixtures, fans, etc. There are no switch-controlled outlets anywhere in the house. I think that’s an outdated practice anyhow. In rooms where we have lamps, I use Hue bulbs and a Hue button controller.

Sounds like you have thought this through pretty well. Will be interesting to see how it progresses.

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Can you share the link where you got those? I’m curious if it’s cheaper than the company that laser engraves the paddles.

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I don’t understand how it’s complex? You tap on and the room’s lights come on. That’s about as easy as it gets.

What you’re describing locks us into all smart bulbs. We want a mix of fixtures and lights.

The other benefit is that you don’t have banks of switches everywhere. That’s what’s confusing to me.

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Cleanplate Collections | Tedstuff

They’re not cheap, but not exorbitant either, IMO. The lettering is readable, but subtle.

I originally was going to get laser engraved plastic plates, but I really don’t like the commercial/industrial look of the engraving. I ran across these by random chance, and I’m really happy with them. High WAF as well.

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45

To add to @dcaton1220’s comment, these are metal, so arguably a step above the plastic plates.

Interestingly, the outer plate is attached via magnets.

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Definitely. I usually use the plastic screwless plates, but these are much nicer. The finish and engraving are first rate. Between the plates and the Inovelli switches, IMO it has a very clean, modern look. And the magnets are very strong.

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Thanks for the link, I don’t have screw less plates yet, so this would be a way to get upgrades for the same cost.

I have some switch paddles engraved by Zooz Zen32 Custom-Etched buttons – Domotinc-customs (they do inovelli ones too Inovelli custom engraving – Domotinc-customs) . I like the look of them, but they’re expensive. The faceplates you linked seem like a cheaper option.

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I don’t believe there is any code about where light switches have to be, or that a hall needs a 3-way.

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I’m in Chicago so maybe it’s different, but here you have to have switches at the top and bottom of stairs, at each end of the hallway, at each entrance to a room, etc. At least that was my experience when we did an addition in 2020. We have the shortest “hallway” ever and were told we needed two light switches.

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I like your thinking here with the one switch per room. Ideally with Innovelli switches using 2x/3x/4x taps and up/down/config, there is what, like 30 “buttons” on a single switch?

However, I look at resale value… To do this, you have to run a hot line to all devices/fixtures/switched items, and then use a shelly relay or something to do the actually switch on/off. You can run all “switched” items to a central mechanical room and wire a wall of smart relays there, but it would be good to run the electrical from there and into the wall BEHIND the switch where a bank of 4 switches would ever be. This is a TON of wire to do this, but if you want that, this gives you the ability to resale as normal switches as you just wire the ends together in the mechanical room and cut out a 2/3/4 gang switch in the draywall and grab the wires and put into an old work box, so it will work like normal.

But your items here, if you have a network outage, or zigbee issues, yours hosed, you CANT turn on any switches… unless you put a dumb switch with a smart relay in the mechanical room, so you/d have to go there to turn everything on. This is the biggest drawback.

The first option of runnin wires and leaving in the walls for when you sell is the best. Otherwise you will have to leave a fully implemented home assistant solution that the next owners will 99% very likely know nothing about and dont understand or want… and anyonme who does, will setup their own system and might prefer the old way of normal switches and smart relays to have convienence during internet/network outages to turn on/off switches by standing up and pushing the button.

Personally, I would NEVER go all wireless on ANYTHING… You get tons of bugs and especially at 2.4Ghz where Zigbee operates, its VERY NOISEY and you could have random failures and slow responses and eventually get tired of it and rip the walls open and re-wire your house for 40k in two years.

Then you have NEC Standards you have to meet. Depending on what your municipality runs as code, 2016 year/2023 year, etc… So things like a dedicated switch for garbage disposal must be within xx inches of kitchen sink. Light switches MUST be xx feet from ANY DOORWAY or walk through. You can say that smart switch there is a switch to “control” the light, but if its not hardwired and can be made to do anything (you can make your upstairs master bed switch control the entire kitchen) so is it really meeting code? I dont know… And your city will NOT pass you as during inspection, they have to do a full walktrhu and test all switches to make sure they do what they are intended… and you wont get your CO (Certificate of Occupancy) wihtout final inspection, so you cant really have it setup yet…

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And this is exactly why I suggest having 1 switch physically control every light in the room, then use smart bulbs/fixtures to dial in “zones” with individual control. Put the switch in SBM and bind them to the bulbs for smart control. At least there’s an in-room physical backup.

The other thing that may make more sense would be to build hidden “hatches” in a corner or hidden spot in the room and house the physical switches for that room there. 1) It’ll save a TON on wiring everything to a central location. 2) in the event of an issue like above, you have an in-room physical backup 3) When you go to sell the house, you’ll have a whole lot less electrical to wire because 100% guaranteed the buyer won’t share the same smart home vision as you and will have a condition of the rooms being wired traditionally in their offer. Because it will cost a small fortune to revert it back from a central location.

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I really like what you’re trying to achieve here. I think it’ll be a very intuitive way to interact with your home. However, for all the reasons already mentioned above by others, it seems like a bad idea to wire up your house in this fashion. And once those walls go up, it becomes so much more difficult and costly to rework it should you change your mind about how you want your setup. My suggestion that will give you the exact same result is to wire your house in the traditional way, except instead of having a bank of switches on the wall when you come into a room, wire them all onto a single smart switch. Then instead of having a panel of switches off in your garage, install smart relays at each light source you want independent control of. Something like the Inovelli Fan/Canopy module that is in pre-order would work. Now run your single wall switch in smart bulb mode, ensuring constant power out to all lights in the room. Then you can set up your controls for everything however you’d like through your hub automations and device triggers or button combinations or whatever else. You can set up the wall switch to turn on or off all the lights or light groups in the room, meanwhile you’ll still maintain independent control of different lights in the rooms which can be controlled with scenes or double pressing the switch. And if you ever move or decide you want a different setup, you just remove your relays and swap your switches for dumb ones and everything is 100% normal wiring.

53

This is an interesting idea and one that I thought of before, but I run into a few problems. First, some of our rooms are large, and we want Smart Control of many individual light groups. I would have to fit all of those relay in the wall somewhere behind the switch, and in the case of a problem with a relay, I would need to open the wall to get to them. It’s unlikely I could reach them via the hole for the single switch.

Secondly some of the rooms are large with many layers of light (cans, art spots, low voltage, etc) and a mix of smart and dumb bulbs. If I were to revert the switches to dumb switches, I could end up with 7 or 8 switches, something that no one wants. So the only way to make this work would be to create fewer light groups today in case I want to revert back in the future. That would inevitably mean I would need to put some lights of varying types into groups together, something I want to avoid.

In other words, I can’t escape the confines of a dumb home unless I avoid wiring like a dumb home!

Our electrician is actually a smart home rep who sells and installs Lutron solutions and he says this wiring scheme is equal to the Radio RA 3 wiring setup, which I’ve confirmed. So, if in 20 years, when we sell, I could always convert the house to a managed smart home. This is a high-end home, so it would warrant it. I’m also hesitant to predict that homes 20 years from now will still have individual light switches in each room to mechanically power the lights. I don’t think we’ll move back to that, so it’s hard for me to make a decision on what I think the future will hold!

I’m considering one option: Making sure the wires for each light group flow behind the wall where their switchplates would be. But as I consider that idea, I realize I’ll still have the problem of too many switches in some rooms if I decide to revert to the “dumb” way in the future.

I’ve got another meeting with the electrician this week to further discuss this.

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In 20 years, that’s when I could afford the RA3 product line.

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You don’t have to put them all in the wall behind the switch. My suggestion would be to find a relatively hidden place where you can put an access panel and/or a bank of smart switches. For bedrooms, the closet is the most obvious place. For other spaces, you may be able to find a place behind an upper cabinet or in a coat closet that will generally be out of the way.

I don’t think it makes sense to run EVERYTHING back to the garage because it makes it so that your fallback is completely unusable. With an out of the way panel of switches and relays per room, you can always turn some lighting on at the switch and then go to the closet or cabinet. Troubleshooting becomes easier too.

There’s no way to do what you want without committing to smart control of some kind permanently, but I think that at least having the controls for a room IN that room could be a reasonable compromise. If/when you sell your house, smart lighting like this is probably going to be polarizing. If you’re planning on staying in the house long term, then I wouldn’t worry about retrofitting it to dumb switches.

56

You could also locate the “secondary” switch bank somewhere that you can plan to hide it behind artwork or furniture, and simpler than the suggestion to build hatches for the switches.

Another concept that I don’t think anyone has mentioned in this discussion is motion / occupancy sensors. If properly placed and configured, you might never need to touch the switch to call your “default” lighting scene, which would help improve the guest friendliness.

57

Thanks for this. Yeah, in the end, after talking more to my electrician and to our real estate agent, I’ve decided to put the extra switches all in the one place in the garage. Maybe I’m OCD, but I just couldn’t get behind the idea of seeing switches in closets and cabinets all over the place. I wanted to keep the walls clean and operation simple, even for guests. This is a higher-end home, so I think the smart features I’m implementing will be desired by a new buyer. We plan on being in the house at least 15 years minimum… probably 20 or more. It’s hard to predict what we’ll be doing with homes in 2044, but I think we’re moving away from dumb switches everywhere. Whatever smart systems are available at that time will likely benefit from having control for all lights in one place. Or we’ll have some completely different needs. At this point, I’m all in! :slight_smile:

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Yes, I plan to use a combo of motion sensors, automations and voice. Interestingly, in our current house, I’ve moved to smart bulbs and have had to “secure” switches so people don’t turn them off. In this new house, I think we’ll end up using the switches more to turn on rooms just because we’ll have them again!

59

It feels a little silly to refer to switches being in the room with the lights the control as “all over the place” but thinking that putting a wall full of switches far away from the lights they control as makes perfect sense.

It’s your house, so do what you want, but I’m not sure why you started this thread given that you were obviously going to do exactly what you initially thought of regardless of what anyone else suggested on top of acting like any other solution is ridiculous…

If you’re in an upscale home, I would look into lighting control systems that are actually designed to do what you’re looking for rather than hacking individual switches into what you desire.

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60

Hey, I don’t think that’s fair. I didn’t say any suggestions were ridiculous and I’ve tried to be appreciative and kind to every poster here, including you. There’s nothing that says that if I post something looking for advice that I’m obligated to follow any of it. Similarly, you shouldn’t feel like if you post advice online, that the poster needs to follow it or they are wasting your time.

This posting has helped me immensely in figuring out that I’m on the right path for me and my wants. People made all manner of suggestions here and listed out things I should look out for, and that has spurred me to really consider and research my plans more in depth, and I have made some small adjustments to my plans because of it. But in the end, no one has brought up any potential issues that outweighed what I wanted to accomplish. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have posted.

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