Smart 2 Gang 2 Way Switch? Is it possible?

[MikeEvans]

Good Morning,

I would like to fit WiFi switches into my front room.

There is two switches in the room, one by the front door and one by the door leading to the hall, both 2 gang, two way switches (One switch controlling the middle light, the other controlling spot lights around the room) .... Unfortunately I have bought a few different Wifi switches that claim to be 2 Gang 2 Way but for the life of me I cannot work out how to wire them up..... there doesn't seem enough contacts.

Could someone please point me in the right direction, of a wifi switch that would work for me? I would like to replace both switches.

Thanks

 

[Rob.]

If they are 2 gang 2 way then they should work if the original wiring was to a 2 gang 2 way switch. 

Problem is, most wifi switches require a neutral connection that you likely haven't got. 

I suggest calling an electrician. He will be able check for you and advise from there. Shouldn't cost much.

 

[phil d]

As Rob said, call a spark in for an opinion as most smart switches do require a neutral, mind you, if you have 2 switches controlling the same lights, then why would you want to fit 2 WiFi switches, one would be sufficient, 2 is just wasting your cash.

 

[ProDave]

I am still waiting for someone to explain to me how getting your phone out of your pocket, finding the app, and finding the button for that particular room, is easier than just walking up to the switch carefully placed in an obvious location on the wall and just pressing it.

 

[Rob.]

I am still waiting for someone to explain to me how getting your phone out of your pocket, finding the app, and finding the button for that particular room, is easier than just walking up to the switch carefully placed in an obvious location on the wall and just pressing it.

You don't need to get it out of your pocket. 

WiFi linked means it can be connected to your smart hub at home, for example amazons Alexa. You just walk into the room an speak "Alexa, lights on".

I imagine it being quite useful for families who's kids, or other half constantly leave things switched on when they leave a room.

 

[MikeEvans]

There is still a physical button on the wall that can be pressed, so no manual functionality is lost. This is simply as Rob said, to allow me to turn on/off lights remotely via a mobile app or via Alexa. You can also set a lighting schedule for when you are on holiday to simulate someone being home.

Cheers

 

[phil d]

I am still waiting for someone to explain to me how getting your phone out of your pocket, finding the app, and finding the button for that particular room, is easier than just walking up to the switch carefully placed in an obvious location on the wall and just pressing it.

It's an age thing, these young people seem unable to do anything unless it's controlled by an app or some form of computer. These days you can do a lot online, you can buy your shopping, order food, even buy a car or a house, however there are still quite a few  important things you can't do. Sat in the chair after several beers, "Alexa, I need a pee", and the only thing that happens if you wait long enough is you end up sat in a wet patch.

Mind you, my wife's getting as bad, and at 60 she should know better, on Friday night we had a power cut, no tv, I'm pulling out torches just in case it's off longer than our emergency lights work for. She goes upstairs, comes back down with her tablet, "lucky I charged this up" she tells me, "oh really, and how's that going to work with no broadband?" I replied, her face was a picture.

 

[Rob.]

It's an age thing, these young people seem unable to do anything unless it's controlled by an app or some form of computer. These days you can do a lot online, you can buy your shopping, order food, even buy a car or a house, however there are still quite a few  important things you can't do.

Technology is here to stay, an it offers a lot of improvements over the "old" way of doing things. I've seen it jump leaps an bounds in factory automation. 

.

Yes IoT isn't perfect, but it's still pretty new. Only really been present for 10 years. It'll keep improving. 

I imagine if you were born before electricity was widely used you'd have a similar argument against using it over gas lighting. 

Oh an as for the tablet, most have a cellular connection for internet, so would work fine without the broadband 

 

[phil d]

Technology is here to stay, an it offers a lot of improvements over the "old" way of doing things. I've seen it jump leaps an bounds in factory automation. 

.

Yes IoT isn't perfect, but it's still pretty new. Only really been present for 10 years. It'll keep improving. 

I imagine if you were born before electricity was widely used you'd have a similar argument against using it over gas lighting. 

Oh an as for the tablet, most have a cellular connection for internet, so would work fine without the broadband 

Her tablet didn't, lol. I'm not against progress by any means, I remember when I was starting out in the trade, cordless drills, yeah they'll happen, and sds drills, well they were few and far between, today I use cordless more than plug in, drills, saws, grinders, you name it and I've probably got a cordless version. The thing I don't like is how lazy and antisocial technology has made people.

Not too long ago, we got these things called mobile phones, they allowed you to be 'in, when you were out' and they were handy, nowadays most people have one, but don't use it except for the internet and texting, the voice function seems largely to have been forgotten. People will text someone rather than give them a call, and they seem to have become less intelligent since the mobile phone became a 'smart device'. How many people do we get on here asking a question such as 'where can I get a such and such', it would take them less time to look on Google for the answer than it does to sign up on here, post the question, and wait for one of use to google it for them. The same thing applies to wiring, ' I've removed a light switch there was a 3 core, red, yellow and blue, and a twin, red and black, I've taken the old switch off and don't know how to fit the new one', well, isn't this where the camera on the phone would be useful?

I have a relative and they are so hooked on the internet it's pathetic, one is sat on one side of the room, one on the other, both on their phones, the baby does something funny, they'll actually text each other, " hey look, she's just shook her new rattle, lol" the other replies, "yes really funny, lol". FFS they are in the same room, talk to each other!

Technology is fine when it's improving things such as lifestyle, or jobs etc, but the way it's going no, I don't like it. I've got that way now that I generally ignore text messages, especially when they go along the lines of, "having problems with my electrics, any idea what's wrong". Now, it could be anything, what problems are you having, have you no power at all, is it just a light out, give me a clue! But oh no, they either expect me to spend about half an hour batting texts back and forth, or for me to ring them, well if you want my help how about this for a novel idea, why don't YOU ring me?

You can probably tell by this post I'm turning into a grumpy old git because of this. lol

 

[OnOff]

Quinetic?

 

[Doc Hudson]

Good Morning,

I would like to fit WiFi switches into my front room.

There is two switches in the room, one by the front door and one by the door leading to the hall, both 2 gang, two way switches (One switch controlling the middle light, the other controlling spot lights around the room) .... Unfortunately I have bought a few different Wifi switches that claim to be 2 Gang 2 Way but for the life of me I cannot work out how to wire them up..... there doesn't seem enough contacts.

Could someone please point me in the right direction, of a wifi switch that would work for me? I would like to replace both switches.

Thanks

There is still a physical button on the wall that can be pressed, so no manual functionality is lost. This is simply as Rob said, to allow me to turn on/off lights remotely via a mobile app or via Alexa. You can also set a lighting schedule for when you are on holiday to simulate someone being home.

Cheers

Technology is here to stay, an it offers a lot of improvements over the "old" way of doing things. I've seen it jump leaps an bounds in factory automation. 

.

Yes IoT isn't perfect, but it's still pretty new. Only really been present for 10 years. It'll keep improving. 

I imagine if you were born before electricity was widely used you'd have a similar argument against using it over gas lighting. 

Oh an as for the tablet, most have a cellular connection for internet, so would work fine without the broadband 

The technology is here,  it is functional, but there is also a lot of hype about how all-singing and dancing some of these products are, when in reality they are not quite as all functional as the sales pitch suggests. Mikes own opening post proves the point that it is common for someone to buy a product only to find it doesn't quite work in every situation and it is not just a simple swap out of the old manual device for the hi-tech internet connected device. Home automation products have been around for much longer than 10 years, (some early stuff involving hard-wired connections back to a dedicated PC under the stair cupboard), however I am aware of people with products that are now obsolete and/or unsupported as the manufacture no longer provides a product range, or they have gone out of business. Rob is absolutely correct when he talks of the leaps and bounds in electrical control within industry and filtered down to the domestic sector. However along with the progress there is also obsolescence due to continual updates of hardware/firmware/software, (or 'Apps' as the youngsters call software applications nowadays).  I have lost track of the number of times I have updated PC's, Laptops, Smartphones over the years, only to find a certain application that used to operate fine on the old equipment is now no longer functional due to some incompatibility or other. File formats get amended Operating Systems get updated and the newer version is not always backwards compatible with the older version(s). Several years ago I had to change my phone from a Blackberry to either Android or iPhone as support for an App I used was going to be dropped from the Blackberry OS.  I know of various incompatibilities between some in-car hands-free systems with either Android or iOS.  If car and phone manufactures can't be bothered in invest a bit more in ensuring greater compatibility I am not convinced that light switch manufactures will get 100% all-functional devices that will operate spot on over numerous platforms. You will still always have the basic reliability fact that The more links you have in the chain, the greater the chance of failure to operate.  

It is also interesting that with all the modern emphasis on being green and reducing waste, we are introducing highly complex switches that will undoubtably require replacement far sooner than any traditional on/off switch? And as we are being told almost daily in the press, we have serious obesity issues and that the chair and the remote control are actually very unhealthy for our far to sedentary lifestyles. A quick walk upstairs to check the kids bedroom lights would actually be good for your health!   The bottom line is  they are a 'nice to have' play thing for those who want to buy them, but as modern lights are actually very low energy, IF we do accidentally have one left on, it costs very little, and will just act as the added deterrent making the house looked 'lived in', in-case any low-life are prowling the neighbourhood. For a reliable on/off schedule while on holiday, that can still be done for less than £10 + a table lamp, (or £20 or £30 if I want to push the boat out and have multiple rooms).  https://www.toolstation.com/greenbrook-7-day-plug-in-electronic-timer/p59127   and a bit more walking around the house is good for your health, plus it saves you consuming power on your phone & Alexa & the light switch. There was a purge a while ago about telling people to turn all the TV's off at the socket and not leave them in standby consuming power, Was that just so we can have the automatic light system sitting in standby instead? 

However, I guess we also have to remember the modern culture of upgrade and replace phones/iPads etc every couple of years, so maybe people are of the same frame of mind with the home automation system and anything over a three year lifespan would be considered excessively long? 

Doc H.

 

[Rob.]

Home automation products have been around for much longer than 10 years, (some early stuff involving hard-wired connections back to a dedicated PC under the stair cupboard)

My 10 year point, was in reference to readily available products. That any general homeowner could understand and use. 

Home automation earlier than this was pretty specialized and you needed a fair amount of knowledge in how it did what it did to use it. 

 

[Doc Hudson]

My 10 year point, was in reference to readily available products. That any general homeowner could understand and use. 

Home automation earlier than this was pretty specialized and you needed a fair amount of knowledge in how it did what it did to use it. 

I don't think it was that specialised or hard to get. As I can recall customers purchasing their own X10 home automation kit to be added to standard domestic installations certainly back in 1999, and it wasn't actually that new then. (It was a case of fit some deeper back boxes to allow additional modules to fitted behind the switch).  The actual thing that changed was the users not the technology. During the 1980's especially mid 80's to mid 90's there was an abundance home PC geeks, writing programs in basic, for their new Amstrad or Commodore or Acorn or Sinclair etc.  to either create video games or control anything they could find to plug in via the ports on the back. You had stuff for model railways and of course turning lamps off/on. But then as the era of DOS based machines was superseded a lot of these people put the DOS & GWBasic to one side, and as mentioned frequently over recent years in the press,  there came a new generation who have little idea, or have never dabbled with any computer coding, (or programming as it used to be called). I recall a client with a quite large rural bungalow which had numerous zones for central heating set up. These were all controlled by an Amstrad PC which was fitted inside a dummy kitchen cupboard, so you walked to the corner of the kitchen to adjust any heating zones via the PC, that must have been somewhere in the mid 80s-90s by virtue of the PC used. Another guy who was a school IT teacher who had his home PC working lights etc that was late 90's or early 2000? Well before the smartphone generation there was actually quite a few clued up homeowners who dabbled with home automation kit. However it is basically the drift toward the smart phone App and wifi that has given it the recent kick up the backside back into a greater public awareness over the recent 10years and younger.  But this sort of readily available stuff is well over 10years old. https://www.uk-automation.co.uk/x10-home-automation/   ( this also tends to echo the boom-bust of shops like Maplin Tandy etc from the high-street.) 

Doc H

 

[Rob.]

Well, never having worked in the domestic sector I guess I was oblivious to these kind of things. Nobody I knew of had anything like it. 

I still feel my point is valid though, within the last 10 years, the technology has become far more widely available, used and able to be operated with very little if no training.