240V Smart Switch(es) For Europe (EU) - Zigbee, Thread ...

Capturing some of the comments from Reddit (since it&#;s long, I&#;m going to TLDR it and you can click on the drop-down to read the entire comment if you&#;d like):

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u/criterion67 - Benefits and ideas from the US Version

I&#;m located here in the US, so I have the benefit of enjoying all of the awesome goodness that Inovelli provides for our market.

You will not find a better quality smart switch with as many onboard customizable options, anywhere else on the market! They use top notch materials and the designs are quite attractive. I just installed another switch today (a fan control switch)!

I love that I can use them not only as a standard smart switches, but also to trigger multiple automations depending on the chosen number of button (paddle) presses. For example, one of my Blue series 2-1 switches in my primary bedroom, not only controls the lighting with standard on/ off/dimming capabilities, but I also use multiple paddle presses as triggers for other automations. The LEDs are also fully customizable for both color and animation type. I use this feature for various notifications. In this particular use case, I have Philips Hue bulbs in the bedroom and use the smart bulb mode on the switch to keep the power constant to the bulbs. The paddle presses are still able to control them.

If I press the up paddle 5x, It will open my garage door and the LEDs will display a rising animation in red. If I press the down paddle 5x, it will close the garage door and the LEDs will display a falling animation in green.

A 2x press of the config button will initiate a cleaning cycle for that particular room using my Dreame robot vacuum/mop. The LEDs will flash purple as a confirmation. I use the same cleaning automation with switches in other rooms of my home as well.

A 3x press of the config button will unlock my front door, whereas a 4x press, will lock all exterior doors.

Some of you in the EU and down under may want to consider donating & shipping some of your local design switches, so that Eric can have something in hand to use for testing, inspiration and design.

I know that my post is long and I wouldn&#;t have taken the time to share all of this if I didn&#;t truly love Inovelli as a company and their products!

I hope you guys can make this a reality as everyone around the world should be able to enjoy Inovelli!

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Inovelli Response

Hey thanks u/criterion67! Read the entire comment and I sincerely appreciate it

I love what the community allows us to do &#; we couldn&#;t build these switches without you guys, so I&#;m really hoping we can keep this same energy and strategy and replicate it overseas. I&#;m sure there are a lot of hungry smart home owners who want to design some products together!

I just bought some Aqara H1&#;s (those things look really cool) but yeah, I&#;d love any and all options so we can study them, that&#;s a great idea.

PS - I love seeing the use-cases, that&#;s actually my favorite part of reading comments. I have the same setup in my bedroom with the Blue 2-1&#;s and the Hue lights. Zigbee Bindings are amazing!

u/Be_Shadow - EU/Switzerland Perspective on Design

Eric, all of these designs are common in EU and Switzerland. The dial version is mainly used for dimmers, but for such a use case you can think of any alternative. The main difference to US is that EU uses exclusively the square type frame that fits in the wall box.

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Inovelli Response

Awesome, thanks! Yeah we have a dial version too, but I&#;ve only seen one of those as a dimmer switch (Lutron Aurora) and the design isn&#;t really that popular anymore. Most dimmer switches you hold up or down on the paddle and that will dim.

Are dimmers popular over there or is it mainly On/Off?

Also, does the switch that&#;s at the bottom left control two loads? I&#;ve even seen switches that have three rectangle toggles in them.

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Yes, nowdays the dimmers tend to be as you described. Dials/knobs are considered a bit old fashioned.

The switch at the bottom right (not left) with two buttons in one frame are generally used to control two different loads.

Also, i think the EU standard that covers dimensions and electrical specs for household use switches is the EN/IEC series.

u/blidgency - EU/Scandinavian Perspective on Design and Function

I&#;m located in Sweden and here in Scandinavia at least, the square one and the two rectangles are the absolute most common. And a sophisticated design is something that would fit very well. What&#;s really lacking here in Europe is switches with up/down buttons that also supports smart bulbs. For me here in Sweden, to get up/down wall switches I&#;d have to turn to battery powered Zigbee switches, and we all know that battery powered isn&#;t as good as switches running on mains.

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Inovelli Response

Tagging u/Be_Shadow too since I&#;m replying to your comment

I&#;m trying to understand how the switch works currently (it&#;s been a while since I visited China which had the same style switch and I just can&#;t remember).

Let&#;s take the square style switches (bottom left and bottom right) &#; do you press on the bottom part to turn it off and the top part to turn it on? Or do you just press on the bottom once to turn it off and press on the bottom again to turn it on?

My thoughts would be that it would make the most sense to design the switch using the latter method so that the switch always rests in the same spot and the LED Bar could turn on when the light is on, and off when the light is off.

Hopefully I made sense?

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Both are available depending what switch you have. If it&#;s a regular &#;dumb&#; switch you click up to turn it on, and it stays up until you click it down for off and it stays there. Of course there&#;s more expensive alternatives, i have a 2 gang centre off switch for 170$ with a smart relay behind it in the living room&#;

If we put smart relays behind them or if it&#;s a dimmer it&#;s possible to put springs behind the buttons to make them momentary, and the button stays in the down position until it&#;s pushed. When released it returns back down.

I hope this answers your question!

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Inovelli Response

Yeah definitely &#; seems very similar to the US then, which is nice.

Do you think people would prefer the momentary style for a smart switch?

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I do think people would prefer momentary switches. Since I&#;m in Sweden, and all of us of course has IKEA smart bulbs, i have many friends who has made their dumb switches &#;momentary&#; by putting in a spring just because people come over and use the switches

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Inovelli Response

That&#;s great! Easier to make so that works out

u/Crytexx - EU Perspective

Eric, I think I love you. This is awesome and honestly surprising you have commented on my year old post!

I will comment on your sticky thread with some answers, ideas and pictures by the end of the week. Currently it is pretty late at night for me, so I am just commenting to give this post some traction (for the SEO ;))

Again. Amazing. I am so excited already!

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Inovelli Response

Haha, thanks dude! I&#;ll be honest, I just typed in, &#;240V Inovelli&#; into Google and just started clicking and hoping anyone was still interested lol

We need all the help possible to get this going and I need to get up to speed on the EU market so I appreciate you coming in and commenting.

I&#;m looking forward to getting this up and running as well!

I appreciate you!

u/ADHDK, u/brwnie, u/Lurker_81 - Australian Perspective on Design and Function

Australia might use 220-240 power, but we have 1-4 gang switches in these styles with a standard plate size. 4 gang is quite common, meaning if a plate maxes at 2 it&#;s more work and more permanent upgrade an existing point by adding another plate and wall box.

• https://www.mjselectricalsupplies.com.au/4-gang-quad-light-switch
• https://www.tedslightsandfans.net.au/products/clipsal-iconic-4-gang-switch-plate-skin-only-black

Probably the only nice looking smart switch available here with modern ecosystems is the LIFX

• LIFX Smart Switch 4 Gang 4 Button

We also have our own electrical standards requiring certification, and all installs must be made by a licensed electrician no DIY allowed to mains power.

While dimmers seem to be ignored for the EU market, I&#;ll say a lot of new builds in Australia would have dimmer capable downlights with dimmer switches for dumb lights being a large appeal. New builds downlights are pretty much all tail and plug in the ceiling for ease of use and replacement. Here&#;s the product sheet for the down lights I just pulled from my ceiling when installing Nanoleaf.

• https://cdn2.rexel.com.au/medias/sys_Aurexel/sheets/sheets/hd7/haf//RBSRC9WDLCCT3-01.pdf

Honestly I&#;d likely have just kept these downlights if there were decent wall switch replacement options with dimmer.

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Inovelli Response

Fantastic, this gives me a ton of info to go off of, thank you so much!

u/magformer - UK Perspective on Design Differences

First, this great and I&#;d be very interested in another 240v option.

In Europe, I&#;d say the aesthetic of switches in continental Europe is quite different to the UK/Ireland. Your render looks quite &#;continental&#; - the large buttons occupying most of the face of the switch, and the rounded edges.

In the UK and Ireland, switches tend to look quite different - the switches themselves are almost invariably smaller relative to the faceplate and they tend to have either square edges or more acute rounded edges for more &#;premium&#; switches. Also retractive switches are fairly uncommon for normal domestic lighting in UK/IE.

If you put these in the UK/Irish home they would definitely stand out. There is a segment of the market that wants smart switches here that don&#;t obviously look &#;smart&#;. I could be totally wrong about this as a non-US person but it seems like Inovelli switches have a lot of design elements in common with typical non-smart US switches. I&#;d say these renders are sort of the same idea for the continent, but not UK.

But current/competing 240V smart switches also don&#;t fit in so you could do that type of product better than others, and assume those who want really conventional looking switches will buy relays.

There&#;s a real lack of good dimmer options and I could see something that mimics a traditional rotary dimmer doing well. There are a few options, e.g. iolloi but they are expensive and hard enough to find.

One practical point to consider is that different EU countries have different types and shapes of electrical back box that these swtiches would be going into - some totally different, e.g. square vs round, and they can be quite shallow in new construction. If you wanted one SKU to work across different countries, you might have to think about mounting templates or adapters.

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Inovelli Response

Wow, thanks for the insight on the design differences, this is exactly what I&#;m looking for.

If I&#;m understanding correctly, it sounds like the faceplates are the same/similar across the UK, but it&#;s the paddles that are different, is that correct? I wonder if we could make some sort of standard faceplate, but then have different paddle sizes that fit into that plate?

As for the rotary point, I asked another commenter, curious on your thoughts. Would it be accepted if we had the standard square/rectangle switches used as dimmers, but instead of the rotary, the switch paddles would be held up to dim brighter and held down to be dimmed darker (then single tap up = on, single tap down = off)?

u/c_david_j, u/Ulrar - UK Perspective + Aqara Mention

This is great! The Aqara H1 switches have been adapted very well for UK/EU so could be a good starting place to look. Our UK switches are the same size as EU (86mm x 86mm) but we use much smaller paddles for the actual switch on the front. Saying that, I think the larger look of the EU version looks more modern and will have wider appeal, and works perfectly fine in the UK. Seems to be what other manufacturers do.

Also just to add, I don&#;t think having rounded corners is a good idea. All our switches have square corners, so if you replace a square switch with one that has rounded corners you&#;ll see the back box or the bare wall!

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Inovelli Response

Further reading:
Key Questions to Ask When Choosing a Smart Home Device
Understanding Schuko Wall Socket: A Complete Guide
Key Considerations to Keep in Mind When Choosing HELL Diamond Styli

Sager supply professional and honest service.

Can you give me an example? I&#;m trying to envision this, but I&#;m stumped

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Sure! See this Reddit post which shows how it looks when you unscrew the switch from the wall. If the replacement switch has very rounded corners then it won&#;t look great when screwed into the wall. The more square the better.

Unscrewed UK switch

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u/Ulrar Response

I have the one, no neutral which is good but the switch feel is really not great, they&#;re (subjectively) unpleasant to use because only the bottom really actuates and they&#;re kind of mushy.

Biggest problem with them is they don&#;t support binding in decoupled mode

u/siobhanellis, u/c_david_j, u/Born_Check, u/Preference22, u/blidgency - UK, Europe and Australia Perspective + No Neutral Call-Outs

The big square one works for the UK, so would the one with two paddles&#;. Especially if it has two separate circuits as that means you can do downstairs and upstairs (usually on separate circuits), but you can join together if you wish. I&#;ve actually grey imported some Eve switches which are the big single paddle.

No neutral would be fab.

The UK has the twisty ones for dimmer switches, but not sure how popular they are here. Certainly not as much as the USA.

You will need CE compliance for Europe. That is still valid in the UK but, because of Brexit the UK has launched its own standard&#; which is identical to CE (another Brexit bonus)&#;&#; so not sure how much longer uk will recognise CE.

Australia is really different in its switches.

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Inovelli Response

Perfect, thanks for the feedback! Especially the Brexit comment, something to make sure we keep in mind as we develop the switch

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c_david_j Response
No neutral is pretty much a must! It&#;s unusual for UK homes to have neutral wires

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Inovelli Response

Oh wow, I didn&#;t know this, that&#;s great feedback! Do newer homes come with a neutral wire? In the US, it&#;s typically houses built prior to that may not have a neutral.

I know you guys have a lot more history than us and your homes are probably a lot older due to that reason.

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u/Born_Check, u/Preference22, u/blidgency Response

u/Born_Check - Common in Ireland also to have no neutral.

u/Preference22 - In the Netherlands it&#;s the same, older homes have no neutral wires. Newer homes do have that tho! So you could incorporate it into the design to either have 2 types of switches or that it has 3 ports but not all 3 are needed

Ps: not sure from what year the neutral wire became a thing. In my s home it&#;s at least not available

u/blidgency - Yup it differs a lot. In Sweden neutral has been mandatory in new builds in the last 20 years something and many older houses had them too

u/AGULLNAMEDJON - EU Design Perspective

I can&#;t offer any real advice but I would suggest:

1. Make the covers removable. I saw a rant the other day that European switches have the cover integrated to the switch making painting a bit of a nightmare.
2. I&#;d make the radius on the corners on your concept models a bit smaller. Probably just me but I think it looks too fun, not enough business.

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Inovelli Response

1. Perfect, yeah I was wondering how popular this was as I haven&#;t seen too many color options online for the EU &#; we have this on our current switches (the paddle pops off so you can change the color) so hopefully it can translate fairly easily
2. Nice, yeah I just grabbed a picture online and modified it lol &#; question for you, is that part around the switch typically sold separately or do most manufacturers build it into the switch?

Building on point #2, here in the US, we have the actual switch (A - shown in the Imgur link), but then we sell the faceplates (B - shown in the Imgur link) separately and they typically aren&#;t integrated together: https://imgur.com/a/eVHtU4d

u/magformer - UK/Ireland Perspective on Design and Function

First, this great and I&#;d be very interested in another 240v option.

In Europe, I&#;d say the aesthetic of switches in continental Europe is quite different to the UK/Ireland. Your render looks quite &#;continental&#; - the large buttons occupying most of the face of the switch, and the rounded edges.

In the UK and Ireland, switches tend to look quite different - the switches themselves are almost invariably smaller relative to the faceplate and they tend to have either square edges or more acute rounded edges for more &#;premium&#; switches. Also retractive switches are fairly uncommon for normal domestic lighting in UK/IE.

If you put these in the UK/Irish home they would definitely stand out. There is a segment of the market that wants smart switches here that don&#;t obviously look &#;smart&#;. I could be totally wrong about this as a non-US person but it seems like Inovelli switches have a lot of design elements in common with typical non-smart US switches. I&#;d say these renders are sort of the same idea for the continent, but not UK.

But current/competing 240V smart switches also don&#;t fit in so you could do that type of product better than others, and assume those who want really conventional looking switches will buy relays.

There&#;s a real lack of good dimmer options and I could see something that mimics a traditional rotary dimmer doing well. There are a few options, e.g. iolloi but they are expensive and hard enough to find.

One practical point to consider is that different EU countries have different types and shapes of electrical back box that these swtiches would be going into - some totally different, e.g. square vs round, and they can be quite shallow in new construction. If you wanted one SKU to work across different countries, you might have to think about mounting templates or adapters.

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Inovelli Response

Wow, thanks for the insight on the design differences, this is exactly what I&#;m looking for.

If I&#;m understanding correctly, it sounds like the faceplates are the same/similar across the UK, but it&#;s the paddles that are different, is that correct? I wonder if we could make some sort of standard faceplate, but then have different paddle sizes that fit into that plate?

As for the rotary point, I asked another commenter, curious on your thoughts. Would it be accepted if we had the standard square/rectangle switches used as dimmers, but instead of the rotary, the switch paddles would be held up to dim brighter and held down to be dimmed darker (then single tap up = on, single tap down = off)?

u/Is-Not-El - Eastern European and German Perspective on Design and Function

Here is a little feedback from a Eastern European:

Around here and some parts of Germany the single most popular light switch is the Schneider Electric Asfora line. It&#;s so popular in fact that Eve copied their design. Most non-smart switches here come with replaceable caps, so people can place a different colour cap is say a 2-gang switch is controlling a boiler you can put red cap on it. In reality however very few people bother to do this but I guess it&#;s not a big deal since most manufacturers still do replaceable caps.

The most common manufacturers here are Bosch, Schneider Electric, Siemens and Legrand. You can buy a few switches from them and study them. Bosch and Legrand also have smart switches as well as Eve as previously mentioned. What is really important is the price however, unlike the US we have multiple switches around for various stuff so price is important. I personally have 30 switches around a 2 bedroom apartment. Eve wants &#;100 per switch so &#; total, Schneider Electric is &#;4 per switch for non-smart switches - I can outfit my entire apartment with the price of a single Eve switch and given how cheap IKEA smart bulbs are I would not come anywhere near &#; for bulbs and remotes. If you can fit your switch in the sub &#;50 market I would buy it and you would complete with Bosch who officially sells their smart switches for &#;50 but usually one can find them on promo for &#;30. Your advantage would be that the Bosch smart system sucks and is not offered outside Germany for some weird reason.

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Inovelli Response

u/ferbulous - Question about Matter Bindings

This is good news, I have some question about matter. I know it&#;s still pretty new but is there a matter decoupling or binding feature similar to the zigbee ones?

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Inovelli Response

Great question - I believe there is Matter Bindings, but my understanding is that most hubs do not support it yet. It&#;s definitely a feature we wanted on our Thread/Matter switch, but this is what we were told. For sure though, once it&#;s available, we&#;ll provide an update via OTA to include it!

u/blidgency - Feedback on Mockup

Hey Eric u/inovelliUSA that 2nd mock up looks great. Adding the config button adds more options than any other switch we have right now available right now. Just the idea of having a switch supporting my smart bulbs all the way makes me really excited and even my wife finally sounded happy about my experiments at home

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Inovelli Response

Yeah I&#;m really loving the second mockup with the config button. Which version do you like better? The one with the LED bar at the top or bottom? I think it would be easier to pull off the one at the top, but I could be wrong.

Also, the top leaves us with some interesting space to maybe put an mmWave sensor, lux sensor etc. I definitely want to put a humidity/temp sensor in these so you can put them in your bathrooms.

Are exhaust fans popular in your bathrooms (also, what do you call bathrooms out there lol - it&#;s even different in Canada so I try to learn the language)?

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I think that a button with the led on the top is the best look and feel no matter if it&#;s only an &#;up&#; button and not both up and down.

We do call it bathroom here in Europe. In Sweden we have bad habit of calling it just the toilet exhausts fans does exists but only in houses, not apartments.

Neutral is regulated for all new builds after -something and it&#;s very common here in the north

u/pippin_go_round, u/blidgency, u/ufulu - German Perspective on Design & Function

From Germany: two paddle as well as single paddle square are very common. Two paddle is usually used when there&#;s multiple circuits in a room, which is the case, especially with bigger rooms. Both of those I&#;ve seen in pretty much any flat I&#;ve ever been in. They also come combined with double or (more rarely) triple front plates.

Combination with power sockets is rarer but happens, especially in bathroom.

Twist knobs are fairly uncommon but not completely unheard of. I think they&#;re becoming more common, as smart devices and dimmable led bulbs become wider spread.

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Inovelli Response

Hey I studied German in HS (4 yrs worth)!

Great feedback regarding the design. I was wondering about the outlet next to switch combo.

As for the knob, do you think it would be accepted if we kept the same design as On/Off (ie: single, double, triple paddle) and then just made it so that if you hold down on the top of the paddle, the light dims up and if you hold down on the paddle the light dims down?

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u/blidgency, u/ufulu Response

u/blidgency - I&#;m leaving my thought here, I do think a paddle would be more appreciated than a knob!

u/ufulu - From a personal aesthetics and usability point of view the philips hue tap dial switch are really great and fit in nicely next to the regular German type switches.

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