Brainstorm: Design concept for an elegant wireless light switch

This article was originally posted on Syllable.Productions earlier this year.

Wireless lighting is starting to go mainstream. Products like the Philips Hue light bulb are making it easy (if not cheap) for folks to control their home lighting through a smartphone.

But smartphones will never replace the humble light switch. I don’t want to fumble for my phone to turn on the lights; especially, for example, when I get up in middle of the night for a glass of water. I want my home to feel cozy. I want the interface to my home to feel direct and familiar; a switch lets me ask my home for light with a chummy high-five.

You can already get wireless light switches on the market today. But I don’t love the options like this and this. They’re either very expensive or they feel cheap and plasticky. So I want to make a simple, beautiful one. It will be inspired by the beautiful hardware of vintage stereo equipment. It will be flat so you can mount it anywhere. It will use the classic interface of a toggleable radial dial which can be toggled on or off and also rotated for dimming.