A U of A engineering researcher has developed a wireless light switch that could reduce the cost of wiring a house by as much as 50 per cent.
Researcher has developed, at a cost of less than one dollar, a wireless light switch that runs without batteries, can be installed anywhere on a wall and could reduce the cost of wiring a house by …::A U of A engineering researcher has developed a wireless light switch that could reduce the cost of wiring a house by as much as 50 per cent.
Enocean has been making battery free wireless light switches for almost 15 years. I’ve personally used them for about 8 years and love them. They’re a lot more expensive then the $1 quote in the article but still cheaper than an electrician. They work with a strike to a piezoelectric element to make energy and transmit the signal.
Various companies repackage or license the enOcean parts. I’ve used this one from Amazon for about 6 years and haven’t thought about it. I’ve also used others from this brand for 8+ years and had no issues. I bought an old house around Boston that had power in the ceilings but no switches anywhere so this worked perfectly for me and I was able to do it all myself.
Last time i saw a product claiming to run on energy harvested from radio-waves, it was a kickstarter project that (surprise surprise) turned out to be a complete scam.
Not really. RFID operates the same way and has been around forever at this point. This whole thing is a gimmick, it doesn’t replace switches it just makes them more complicated and moves where they’re located. To switch mains current you’re going to need a relay which is more expensive than a simple switch and then you’re going to need to somehow tie a particular RF switch to the appropriate relay.
Sure you might be able to reduce the length of wire running through the walls a tiny bit, but that’s going to be offset by a significantly more expensive and complicated control circuit somewhere. The only way this makes financial sense is if the cost of copper gets so high that running an extra 50 feet of wire is more expensive than a series of microcontrollers and relays and the unreliability of using RF for control.
This article is scant on details. It harvests RF to power/charge low energy devices. What RF bands? Is putting these through a house knocking out bluetooth around it, or existing RF remotes for devices? Or is this some background RF that won’t penetrate deep into a house to begin with? There would be “1-2 RF transmitters” to power the whole house…that doesn’t seem great, that’s a ton of wasted energy emanating in a sphere from the transmitter to hit these devices all over. I’m not sure what problem this is solving, copper wiring cost of extended runs to switches? Isn’t this problem going to go away if some system like zigbee got standardized and the switch hardware was baked into the end device itself to be controlled by any of multiple control points?
You would still need to wire the house with power outlets for phones and lamps… Cutting down on the light switch wiring is interesting but not full on Tesla
Zero details bullshit article. How would it reduce the cost by 50% considering you’d need a smart relay board with connectivity and then wire all the light fixtures to them OR have separate wireless relay boards at every light fixture OR have smart bulbs and a gateway.
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Enocean has been making battery free wireless light switches for almost 15 years. I’ve personally used them for about 8 years and love them. They’re a lot more expensive then the $1 quote in the article but still cheaper than an electrician. They work with a strike to a piezoelectric element to make energy and transmit the signal.
I use something like this for my wireless doorbell because people kept stealing the battery. I’ve had it for years and it works really well.
I know times are tough but who TF out here stealing batteries
It’s probably someone in his house. They either think the door bell is too loud or need the batteries for another device.
I’ve worked with these professionally, but never actually found a way to purchase them myself. Can you recommend a supplier?
Various companies repackage or license the enOcean parts. I’ve used this one from Amazon for about 6 years and haven’t thought about it. I’ve also used others from this brand for 8+ years and had no issues. I bought an old house around Boston that had power in the ceilings but no switches anywhere so this worked perfectly for me and I was able to do it all myself.
Thank you!
Companies: That’ll be $49.99.
No explanation of how it works, but I’m guessing it slides an RFID chip in or out of a Faraday cage.
That is mind-blowing.
Last time i saw a product claiming to run on energy harvested from radio-waves, it was a kickstarter project that (surprise surprise) turned out to be a complete scam.
I’ve heard of this before but I think it’s really a trickle charge. Not practical for charging a phone or anything like that.
Not really. RFID operates the same way and has been around forever at this point. This whole thing is a gimmick, it doesn’t replace switches it just makes them more complicated and moves where they’re located. To switch mains current you’re going to need a relay which is more expensive than a simple switch and then you’re going to need to somehow tie a particular RF switch to the appropriate relay.
Sure you might be able to reduce the length of wire running through the walls a tiny bit, but that’s going to be offset by a significantly more expensive and complicated control circuit somewhere. The only way this makes financial sense is if the cost of copper gets so high that running an extra 50 feet of wire is more expensive than a series of microcontrollers and relays and the unreliability of using RF for control.
I saw a similar device in a friends new build 3-4 years ago. It used the energy from you pressing the switch to transmit to the fitting.
This article is scant on details. It harvests RF to power/charge low energy devices. What RF bands? Is putting these through a house knocking out bluetooth around it, or existing RF remotes for devices? Or is this some background RF that won’t penetrate deep into a house to begin with? There would be “1-2 RF transmitters” to power the whole house…that doesn’t seem great, that’s a ton of wasted energy emanating in a sphere from the transmitter to hit these devices all over. I’m not sure what problem this is solving, copper wiring cost of extended runs to switches? Isn’t this problem going to go away if some system like zigbee got standardized and the switch hardware was baked into the end device itself to be controlled by any of multiple control points?
You would still need to wire the house with power outlets for phones and lamps… Cutting down on the light switch wiring is interesting but not full on Tesla
This could be so easily abused…
Hey guys why do all my lights turn off and on when my neighbor uses a microwave?
Zero details bullshit article. How would it reduce the cost by 50% considering you’d need a smart relay board with connectivity and then wire all the light fixtures to them OR have separate wireless relay boards at every light fixture OR have smart bulbs and a gateway.
Seems like a solution to add light switches for people who have homes that weren’t wired properly with switches for their lights.
For those of us with proper wiring, this probably falls under “ain’t broke, don’t fix it”
Or folks like me who have an all cinderblock exterior.