Cordless light switches

The Quinetic switches don't need batteries, they use energy harvesting.

So I understand. I've looked their site and it's not clear how the two-way feature would work. Is it as simple as pairing each switch individually with one controller, and then toggling either one will toggle the light?

Correct

Richard

Yes.

Or simpler to move both lighting circuits to the same RCD/RCBO.

You'd assume the electrician would have done so, if access the relevant lives and neutrals was available?

Yes, that's it. I have two pairs like this and they work faultlessly.

You can do it with single way smart switches - you will probably need ?no neutral ones? and may need to swap a few wires - by using the ?scenes? function.

The theory is basically this:

Switch 1 actually switches the bulb directly - it is wired to it.

Switch 2 is has power etc but no connection to the bulb.

Switch 1 operates as normal but, in addition, it is set up using the scenes function to detect changes in switch 2.

If the bulb is on and switch 2 is pushed, it toggles 1 off.

If the bulb is off an 2 is pushed, it toggles 1 on.

The beauty is, you can control from a smart phone. If you buy the right switches, they will work with a cheap 433 remote fob, plus you can use Alexa, Google Assistant etc.

There are examples on YouTube.

I use rechargeable night lights with motion sensors. They last about 10 days on one charge, so a routine charge every Sunday keeps them running. Also useful when travelling and staying in strange hotel rooms.

I use mains powered Hue lights with battery powered movement senors.

Saves an awful lot of farting around and you don't need to find and press any switch, kinetic or otherwise.

The movement sensor batterys last for years, I havent had to replace any yet.

Works fine for normal lighting too, you can have night light mode automatically at night when say getting up for a piss etc.

In message <t3pmuk$jg6$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me, at 20:29:25 on Wed, 20 Apr

I discussed that with the electrician, and he's says it's not kosher to combine two spurs onto one like that.

In message snipped-for-privacy@esprimo.zbmc.eu>, at 21:17:21 on Wed, 20 Apr

I'm not yet sure how two switches paired with one controller performs the XOR (rather than OR) function required for two-way operation.

I've already got at least twice as many gadgets requiring "routine charging", than I really want to have to cope with.

Thankfully, the most recent such gadget I bought has a magnetic connection rather than having to grope around with a mini-usb lead and socket. (I have a six-way USB charger hub, and it's got on average four or five things plugged in charging at any one time).

Sadly, my recently bought new smartphone doesn't have wireless charging (the one it replaced did), so that's another gadget that's going to be plugged and unplugged a few hundred times in its lifetime.

To be honest, it never occurred to me that it wouldn't, but a quick check suggests that only about 10% of the "models on the market at the moment" do.

Anyway, these night-lights would also need some sort of shelf or bracket in the hall to mount them on I suppose. It's not big enough to have any furniture in.

In message snipped-for-privacy@pvr2.lan, at 11:27:02 on Thu, 21 Apr

That's another option, which might work fine in the upstairs hall, but you'd need a second motion detector at the bottom of the stair to turn the light on for anyone about to ascend.

I doubt the controller remembers* each switches state and XORs them all to the output, it'll just toggle its output for a trigger from any switch paired with it.

Correct. I've got a dual-gang Quinetic switch to operate wall or ceiling lights. I'm careful to avoid switching both at the same time as one will not work and they will get "out of sync". In fact, as Quinetic switches don't look like ordinary light switches anyway, I wonder why they designed them to look, and appear to operate, like the ordinary switches. They should be either a push-and-return button or spring toggle. Then, if you pushed both by mistake, you'd just have to push the one which hadn't worked.

There are plenty of Youtube videos showing some other configurations of these wireless switches and how to pair and unpair them.

Mine have adhesive backed magnetic wall plates they clip into.

Simple, any time *any* switch paired with the controller is operated it toggles the controller state. So, even if you have a dozen switches operating any one of them will change the state of the light.