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CyberOgre

New Member
Hello,
 
I am starting to explore some home automation ideas.  I recently received an Almond+ router that has automation capabilities (on the fence about it right now), and I want to further incorporated things throughout the house.
 
My first project is going to be under cabinet lighting.  I have 3 isolated areas in the kitchen that I want lighting.  I don't want to destroy my walls getting wire in so I was thinking about a Z-wave setup.  I am willing to cut into my walls for power (or just plug into outlets), but I am struggling with how to determine what receivers/transmitters I would need.  Here is the final catch, I want an in wall Z-wave switch.  I have looked around, and there seems to be little to no current info.
 
Any suggestions?
 
Cheers!
 
Welcome to the Cocoontech forum CyberOrge!
 
Yup; here have been playing a bit with the Almond +, Almond and Almond 2015.
 
Right now it only talks Zigbee and ZWave officially.  I do not know of any under the counter lighting with built in Zigbee or Z-Wave modules.  That may be coming sometime in the future. 
 
You could bury a few Z-Wave modules or Zigbee modules if you wanted to do this with Z-Wave or Zigbee.
 
Here personally used the space for one of many outlets under the counter for an automated switch.
 
Looks nice and works fine for me.
 
That said personally I would address the base infrastructure of your under the cabinet lighting. 
 
Check out the forum posts relating to the variety of methodologies used today for under the cabinet lighting type stuff.
 
Mostly the discussions relate to methodologies of use and infrastructure and then automation of same said infrastructure. 
 
Automation and what you want to use is the easy part.
 
Type of under the counter lighting, LV or HV or incandescent or LED and where you want to turn it on or off from (wall switch or just an automated outlet  is more what should be looked at first.
 
Thanks for the welcome!
 
I am planning on using LED lighting.  Also, I want to use a wall switch for the actual switch.  From what I can tell, it looks like I can find some sort of receiver/module to plug each set of lights into, but I haven't figured out what to get yet.  I have dug around some in the forums and I haven't made much progress, but I'm not giving up...
 
I used LED lighting for my undercabinet lighting, but mine was a new build-- not a retrofit.
 
I used a UPB switch on the undercabinet lighting and another on the general lighting for the room.   The general switch can send a link that activates the undercabinet switch.   You will find that the UPB switches are very configurable.   For example, you can turn on all of the lights in the room with a single click, double click to turn only the ceiling lights on.
 
I also found that my undercabinet lights were a little bit too bright compared to the ceiling light.   Therefore, I dimmed the undercabinet lights to 70% and turned the ceiling lights on to 100% with one touch of the switch when I entered the room.  
 
I also have several rooms that turn on with "no" touch of the switch.   (they are activated by motion sensor through my Omni Pro)
 
You will also find that the switch for the undercabinets does not have to be in the room.   I put several of mine in closets.   For switches that you will activate remotely from other switches this reduces the clutter on the walls.  (sometimes called "wall acne")
 
As rockinarmadillo here also utilize UPB powerline switches.  UPB is primarily utilized here for all in wall automation switches.
 
Here utilized a combination of single and dual load and multipaddle direct loads and linked loads for my kitchen lighting.
 
WAF is good and she knows the switches way better than me today.
 
I do also have Zigbee / Z-Wave (and plus) / X10 and a bit of Insteon around.  (all Zigbee is just connected to Securifi stuff) 
 
Relating to LED lighting you can go with LV (12VDC) managed by dimmable 120VAC power supplies or just 120VAC dimmable LED lighting.   There is are many good suggested ways to do this.
 
You can do similar with your Securifi Almond + using Zigbee and or Z-Wave.  (well almost).  Some of the Zigbee / Z-Wave stuff is so new you have to dig a bit for it.
 
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