Dimmable wall switch buying advice (wired/EU)

Hardware
1

Did a lot of research on dimmable wall switches. I have some wishes:

  • They must fit in my current wall. EU sized!
  • Dimmable
  • Wired/no battery. (batteries are not ecofriendly in my eyes)
  • Z-wave/Zigbee/Homekit compatible.

Right now I think there are 3 ways of doing this:

  1. Micro/Nano modules:
    – aeotec nano dimmer
    – qubino dimmer
    – fibaro dimmer 2

  2. Pulse wall switch:
    – TKB Home TZ35S

  3. Touch wall switch
    – Sonoff Touch

I prefer the TKB Home to the micro modules and touch switches. I don’t want to fiddle with my classic rocker switches to dim lights. That doesn’t seem intuitive to me. And the touch wall switches have these buttons that seem too small to me. The Aeon Labs Touch Panel is my ultimate wall switch but yet unreleased. Do you guys have any tips what to buy? I’d like to hear actual experiences too with the wall switch of your choice. Likes/dislikes etc.

2

i also did not found anything that would do what I need. so I’m gonna build one based on wemos.

3

I don’t want to mess with my electrical wiring that much but good luck with your project. I think US/China is way ahead of home automation hence the choice in wall switches. Europe manufacturers do a bad job in this regard.

4

I think that the problem with EU derivation boxes is the space inside. you can see from my design.

720×1280 65.6 KB

5

That indeed isn’t a lot you can work with. I opened one of my wall switches yesterday to have a look how much space I have. Depth is only 50mm. Fibaro recommends 60mm but 50 will fit for the Fibaro 2nd gen. dimmer module. So maybe it’s the tech of these modules that has to mature to make it more EU friendly. Good point @carlos.mgr

6

one other problem is if you have multiple tubes connecting to the derivation box, less space you gonna have…

the most important for me is not to change the look of the switches because if I change one I have to change all of them. I’m thinking on 3d printing the inside switch, this way I can change from the normal contact connection to a microswitch, and gain allot of space.

try this site and see if helps you
http://www.eurox10.com/Home.htm

7

What did you go for in the end?

8

Decided to leave the wall switches as-is for now. The conventional (current) wall switches are still usable in most cases. But I try to make my light automations as smart as possible so flipping a switch will be reduced to a minimum.

1 Like