Lightwave LP22MK2 Smart Dimmer with Energy Monitoring, 2

 

I’m very impressed with this technology to the point where I’ve now put LightwaveRF light switches in every room of my home and have started to change some of the basic electric sockets to LightwaveRF. I’ve been using the system for a number of years and they have have worked perfectly. It works seamlessly with my Google Home setup, where I have a NEST Hub Max in each of the main rooms. The setup is easy and there are fairly regular firmware updates. The app is easy to use, but to be honest I only ever use that to set up the devices and routines, I use Google assistant to control them either from my phone or the Google Home devices. I prefer LightwaveRF over some of the other systems as you can use your existing lights and light bulbs, in most use cases there is no need to change, which means you have access to far more variety of light fittings, than say a Phillips Hue system. You do need to also purchase a Link Plus device, which is the router that connects the devices to the internet. but you only need one of these per home for all of the devices. I have a fairly large home and it hasn’t failed to reach every switch.
I can’t recommend the system enough.

 

I initially bought one of these as my room. Was being decorated

Ended up buying three as the dimmer was easy to install and can be controlled with your phone or voice via Siri or Google..

I will be buying more as I upgrade the house

 

We have a number of these installed and they work well. Ours are linked to Google assistant enabling us to control our lights by voice. Only negative we have found is that if the switch is controlling a single bulb it can struggle with certain bulb types if the electrical resistance is too low. This can cause the light switch to reset itself and need recalibrating. Solution is to find a suitable bulb or get your electrician to add resistance in the circuit.

 

Good quality, works well but ensure you read the entire manual – we have one set of lights controlled by switches in two locations (either side of a room) and hadn’t realised that we had to replace BOTH switches with Lightwave ones.

 

I live in a rented flat and the light fittings are sealed units with 15 spot lights in four zones in the lounge. Replacing all of these with Hue or other smart bulbs wasn’t an option for me. After a little too-ing and fro-ing with tech support to figure out the wiring diagram against the standard UK home wiring setup (it’s not quite as logical as you’d imagine but makes sense once explained) to a complete novice, I now have 4 zone smart lighting I can dim from anywhere. I’m using the LightwaveRF (autocorrect is on form today!) hub as well. I’ve hooked these up via Google home so I can use voice control. My LEDS aren’t supposed to work with this type of dimmer and flickered during initial setup but some fine tuning of the top and bottom end of the dimming range has cured this.

If you just want a route into smart lighting and can’t replace every bulb or live in a rented place you want to easily remove the switch from when you leave this is a great produc

 

Great switch, only one I have found for use in the UK without neutral wires. Works great with HomeKit. If I’m being fussy, the buttons could feel better when pressed, but quite robust and works well. Saves buying lots of smart bulbs that require switches to be left on.

I did get flickering lights from one of the switches, although a simple firmware update on the app fixed the issue and not seen it since.

 

A very solidly built two button smart switch. Simple to use either smartly or locally via the buttons (tab either button to turn on/off or push and hold a button to adjust dimming).

If you’re going into a backbox with much less than 35mm you will need the spacer. It’s a great finish but does make the switch protrude a little – it doesn’t bother me but if you want a flat-against-the-wall switch make sure that backbox has plenty of room.

The instructions for fitting in the box are good for the electrical size of things and the warnings on how to wire and not to wire. Getting the switch to sit in the spacer and “snap” all four corners of the chrome front plate into place was a sodding nightmare, and eventually took two of us to apply a ton of pressure all around (and the handle end of a screwdriver behind a cloth) to get the last damn corner in. This was despite having removed and checked out alignment, flatness against the wall/spacer and so forth.

Once it’s on, looks really does look great and that finish is solid and polished – I’m really happy with it.

Pairing with the hub is easy (although in my hub setup originally Alexa couldn’t find the switch until multiple hub resets and calls to LW support – but that’s a hub issue not a switch issue), and if their is a pairing problem it’s easy to reset them (although that instruction isn’t in the box – if you need more info there’s various docs on the LW website)

The only slight niggle I’ve noticed is that when at the switch you tap the down button to turn it off, the light flicks off, comes back a bit and flicks off. I’m using Phillips bulbs, and there are many posts from Gen 1 that talk about the need to use good quality bulbs – so bear that in mind. Turning on the light however, no issues at all.

I’ve not put one in a bedroom yet, but be warned that the blue LED on the light between the button goes red when it’s off, and stays red whilst it’s off. It’s not hugely bright, but in a pitch black bedroom, may annoy folks that are light sensitive.