lighting controls and wiring

[v1rtu0s1ty]

I haven't really done any research about lighting controls. Am I correct that we don't need to put in extra wires to implement lighting controls since some products use power lines as the physical transport?

 

[Mike]

That is correct. X10 Insteon, UPB, Z-Wave are some examples. Hard-wired is great but expensive and usually done when the house is being built.

Check out the following for some info:

www.X10.com (old of course)
www.smarthome.com (insteon section) for starters.
http://www.pcslighting.com/upb/overview.html

for hard-wired:
http://www.centralite.com/

I am not sure of a good site for z-wave, but I suspect a z-wave fan here can help with that.

Personally I put insteon switches in, but lighting control systems involve opinions that can get close to the fervor of those generally associated with religion...

 

[v1rtu0s1ty]

Thanks Mike.

 

[Mike]

I hope that was what you were looking for. The powerline (non-hard wired) versions involve replacing swithces/outlets and then some plug in devices for control or signal boosting or the like.

I replaced my switches with Insteon devices and added a few control lincs to control them (and of course the devices to link to the elk).

The 'real' ones require a neutral wire however.

Note that for insteon for example (which I have), this can require some rewiring for 3-way circuits as they do not use travellers. The bright side is you can wire a switch with no connection to another switch and have them act as if they had a traveller (without ripping walls open).

 

[toymaster458]

For other UPB options also look at
http://www.simply-automated.com/
http://www.homeauto.com/Products/HLC/hlc.asp