Zigbee Touch Switch - Silver Frame

A Zigbee touch switch with a silver frame, on white glass.

• Why a Zigbee touch switch silver frame instead of a Wi-Fi one
• The frame is there to match the metal in the room
• Four ecosystems on one switch
• The indicator, and what it can tell you
• Before ordering

A Zigbee 3.0 gateway is required, and so is a neutral wire at the switch box.

Why a Zigbee touch switch silver frame instead of a Wi-Fi one

Because of what happens when you fit the tenth one. Wi-Fi switches each take a slot on your router, and past a dozen devices routers start dropping the quiet ones and reconnecting them slowly. Zigbee switches sit on their own network, draw a fraction of the power, and, being mains powered, repeat the signal for everything around them. A house wired with these gets more reliable as it grows rather than less.

The frame is there to match the metal in the room

Kitchens with stainless appliances, bathrooms with chrome taps, doors with brushed handles. In those rooms a plain white plate is the only thing on the wall with no metal in it, and the eye finds it. The silver frame gives the switch something in common with the fittings already chosen, which is the whole reason this finish exists.

Four ecosystems on one switch

Tuya, Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, which is a wider spread than most switches at this price and unusual to find with HomeKit included. The app adds timers, schedules and scenes shared with everything else on the same hub.

The indicator, and what it can tell you

Configurable: either lit so the switch can be found in a dark corridor, or showing which way the circuit is currently thrown so you can see from indoors whether the outside light is on. Both are useful and they are not the same thing.

Before ordering

Ask us which gang counts we are holding in this finish, because the stock varies more on the framed versions than on plain white. And have your electrician confirm there is a neutral wire at the switch box; a great deal of older wiring here brings only the live and the switched live to the plate.

A Zigbee 3.0 gateway is required and not included: the Tuya Zigbee gateway or the IR blaster version. The same switch comes in black and gold glass. Wikipedia explains Zigbee in plain terms.