Ok, now let’s think about the topic from a practical perspective. I’m quite familiar with KNX, but I can’t really come up with a scenario where KNX would clearly benefit us. Here are our floor plans again:
According to the current planning status, roller shutters will be installed everywhere (current planning status!). There will be a large sun sail to shade the central window and the dining room window from the sun. The dining room window facing east and the kitchen window will be in the shade shortly after noon.
A heat pump with cooling function and a ground loop exchanger for the controlled ventilation system are planned. Simple logic functions, such as bypass for the controlled ventilation or controlling the underfloor heating based on outside and return temperatures, are handled by the devices themselves. In winter, when the sun heats the floor, the return flow temperature rises, and the heat pump realizes it needs to heat less because of the external heat input. The ventilation system detects when the bypass should be activated.
Individual room control is pointless, or so everyone says in the pink forum. At least for our KfW55-standard building, it’s probably very unnecessary. Night setback is also not needed.
Energy-saving functions don’t interest me because the investment cost will always be higher than the electricity savings. Conventional smoke detectors will be installed, and please no hysterical discussions about this. There will be no gas, oil, or fireplace in the house. And if the house burns down while we’re away, it’s insured. There will be no photovoltaic system, and I’m not interested in any other extreme energy-saving measures. The washing machine has its own timer. Usually, we just load it in the afternoon and hang the laundry in the evening. It doesn’t need to run for three hours at night because of lower tariffs to save 0.3 cents per wash cycle.
The living/dining/kitchen area will have six roller shutters and four dimmable lights. Three shutters and two lights each will be controlled from switches next to the living room door and the kitchen door. The switches are arranged side by side so that the leftmost switch controls the left side of the room, and so on. So the west, south, and central living areas are controlled from the living room door; the south dining area, east dining area, and east kitchen are controlled from the kitchen door. For shading, only the two roller shutters next to the living room are relevant (south living room, as it is not under the sun sail, and west living room).
Currently, in the old building, we have internal blinds and a large west-facing facade. Apart from the five warmest days of the year, we don’t fully shade the windows. We just want to avoid direct sunlight where we are sitting, working, playing, etc. Depending on the situation, some blinds go up and others go down, and so on.
Constant light regulation is not desired. Even now, we switch lights on and off based on feeling. When we want to go to bed soon, the lights are usually off or more distant lights are on (kind of indirect lighting). I have different lighting preferences than my wife, and when we are together in the room, naturally, a compromise solution applies.
I sometimes work flexible hours, and sometimes I might sleep only four hours one night and seven hours the next day. A rule like “dim after xx o’clock” won’t work.
There is no defined TV lighting plan. It depends on the program. For briefly watching the news, all lighting can remain as is. For a moderately interesting football game, only the direct light is turned off, but indirect lighting can stay. For a ‘Game of Thrones’ episode or a good movie, everything should be off, especially since these often have dark scenes. Sometimes, for example, the hallway light stays on as indirect lighting for the living area (which makes sole hallway lighting with motion sensors pointless now).
Hallway lighting will have switches (two-way switches) next to each door, which can turn the lighting of the respective floor on and off. So yes, exactly one switch next to each door. The two lamps upstairs will switch on and off simultaneously. It is a floor-level switch. At stair landings, of course, there are exactly two switches: one for upstairs and one for downstairs. So, coming down the stairs, you can operate both switches to turn lights off upstairs and on downstairs. Or you turn off the upstairs light at the bottom of the stairs (top switch off = upstairs off; makes perfect sense to me).
Stair lighting could theoretically be controlled similarly, but that also depends a bit on the show effect, right? It could also be done with a timer or motion sensor. And if pets trigger the stair lighting, well, that’s just how it is. At the moment, we don’t have pets.
As for roller shutter control in the living/dining/kitchen areas, as I said before: short press for fully up/down and hold for precise positioning. But half-positioning is discouraged because temperature differences across the glass can cause damage. For example, next to the living room door, pressing the button three times briefly will raise (or lower) the three shutters. All other roller shutters follow the same principle and are arranged next to their respective doors. Only for bedrooms could I imagine a switch with a timer function, and I would only program the opening time for the next morning. I don’t need a closing time. A short press closes the roller shutter. But if I set my alarm clock to 6:53, I also set the roller shutter to 6:53 so that daylight wakes me at the same time (in the future, we will have joint wake-up times again, and my wife won’t have shift work anymore). BUT: all this can be done conventionally and very simply. So: the office (guest room), bedroom, and two children's rooms will have a switch (short = fully up/down) that allows an opening time to be set.
Just to summarize the shading logic during the day: roller shutters go down in the morning when leaving the room/living area and stay down until the first person returns home in the afternoon. This covers the first 10–12 hours of sunlight exposure.
The lighting in many rooms will be dimmable, but I don’t want expensive color lighting effects. The bulbs should have low blue light and good quality.
So, I think I’ve described the most important areas: roller shutters, lighting, heating, and a few other things...
How can automation like KNX help us now? What comfort gains are possible? What should we automate and why?
According to the current planning status, roller shutters will be installed everywhere (current planning status!). There will be a large sun sail to shade the central window and the dining room window from the sun. The dining room window facing east and the kitchen window will be in the shade shortly after noon.
A heat pump with cooling function and a ground loop exchanger for the controlled ventilation system are planned. Simple logic functions, such as bypass for the controlled ventilation or controlling the underfloor heating based on outside and return temperatures, are handled by the devices themselves. In winter, when the sun heats the floor, the return flow temperature rises, and the heat pump realizes it needs to heat less because of the external heat input. The ventilation system detects when the bypass should be activated.
Individual room control is pointless, or so everyone says in the pink forum. At least for our KfW55-standard building, it’s probably very unnecessary. Night setback is also not needed.
Energy-saving functions don’t interest me because the investment cost will always be higher than the electricity savings. Conventional smoke detectors will be installed, and please no hysterical discussions about this. There will be no gas, oil, or fireplace in the house. And if the house burns down while we’re away, it’s insured. There will be no photovoltaic system, and I’m not interested in any other extreme energy-saving measures. The washing machine has its own timer. Usually, we just load it in the afternoon and hang the laundry in the evening. It doesn’t need to run for three hours at night because of lower tariffs to save 0.3 cents per wash cycle.
The living/dining/kitchen area will have six roller shutters and four dimmable lights. Three shutters and two lights each will be controlled from switches next to the living room door and the kitchen door. The switches are arranged side by side so that the leftmost switch controls the left side of the room, and so on. So the west, south, and central living areas are controlled from the living room door; the south dining area, east dining area, and east kitchen are controlled from the kitchen door. For shading, only the two roller shutters next to the living room are relevant (south living room, as it is not under the sun sail, and west living room).
Currently, in the old building, we have internal blinds and a large west-facing facade. Apart from the five warmest days of the year, we don’t fully shade the windows. We just want to avoid direct sunlight where we are sitting, working, playing, etc. Depending on the situation, some blinds go up and others go down, and so on.
Constant light regulation is not desired. Even now, we switch lights on and off based on feeling. When we want to go to bed soon, the lights are usually off or more distant lights are on (kind of indirect lighting). I have different lighting preferences than my wife, and when we are together in the room, naturally, a compromise solution applies.
I sometimes work flexible hours, and sometimes I might sleep only four hours one night and seven hours the next day. A rule like “dim after xx o’clock” won’t work.
There is no defined TV lighting plan. It depends on the program. For briefly watching the news, all lighting can remain as is. For a moderately interesting football game, only the direct light is turned off, but indirect lighting can stay. For a ‘Game of Thrones’ episode or a good movie, everything should be off, especially since these often have dark scenes. Sometimes, for example, the hallway light stays on as indirect lighting for the living area (which makes sole hallway lighting with motion sensors pointless now).
Hallway lighting will have switches (two-way switches) next to each door, which can turn the lighting of the respective floor on and off. So yes, exactly one switch next to each door. The two lamps upstairs will switch on and off simultaneously. It is a floor-level switch. At stair landings, of course, there are exactly two switches: one for upstairs and one for downstairs. So, coming down the stairs, you can operate both switches to turn lights off upstairs and on downstairs. Or you turn off the upstairs light at the bottom of the stairs (top switch off = upstairs off; makes perfect sense to me).
Stair lighting could theoretically be controlled similarly, but that also depends a bit on the show effect, right? It could also be done with a timer or motion sensor. And if pets trigger the stair lighting, well, that’s just how it is. At the moment, we don’t have pets.
As for roller shutter control in the living/dining/kitchen areas, as I said before: short press for fully up/down and hold for precise positioning. But half-positioning is discouraged because temperature differences across the glass can cause damage. For example, next to the living room door, pressing the button three times briefly will raise (or lower) the three shutters. All other roller shutters follow the same principle and are arranged next to their respective doors. Only for bedrooms could I imagine a switch with a timer function, and I would only program the opening time for the next morning. I don’t need a closing time. A short press closes the roller shutter. But if I set my alarm clock to 6:53, I also set the roller shutter to 6:53 so that daylight wakes me at the same time (in the future, we will have joint wake-up times again, and my wife won’t have shift work anymore). BUT: all this can be done conventionally and very simply. So: the office (guest room), bedroom, and two children's rooms will have a switch (short = fully up/down) that allows an opening time to be set.
Just to summarize the shading logic during the day: roller shutters go down in the morning when leaving the room/living area and stay down until the first person returns home in the afternoon. This covers the first 10–12 hours of sunlight exposure.
The lighting in many rooms will be dimmable, but I don’t want expensive color lighting effects. The bulbs should have low blue light and good quality.
So, I think I’ve described the most important areas: roller shutters, lighting, heating, and a few other things...
How can automation like KNX help us now? What comfort gains are possible? What should we automate and why?
About the switches: Have you seen the new MDT switch for around 120 euros?
And to just go into the kitchen, you don’t need a switch. Not even one for operating it on the go. Generally, you don’t need a switch for the lighting, but in certain situations, of course, it can be nicely adjustable via the switches.
And to just go into the kitchen, you don’t need a switch. Not even one for operating it on the go. Generally, you don’t need a switch for the lighting, but in certain situations, of course, it can be nicely adjustable via the switches.
ONeill schrieb:
Regarding the push buttons: Have you seen the new MDT push button for around 120 euros? Looks nice, but it’s a pure glass push button without any tactile feedback, right? So it’s practically impossible to operate without looking?
The Berker BIQ looks quite nice and, from what I read, they are real rocker switches, meaning you can physically press and toggle them. But they can’t be labeled. So the Enertex MeTa remains. From what I understand, these are also real mechanical/tactile push buttons and not touch-sensitive. Plus, you can label them. But they’re in the 500 euro price range.
I know glass touch panels look sleek, but in daily use, a switch with tactile feedback is probably more “comfortable.”
And just to quickly go to the kitchen, you don’t need a push button. Also not one for operating while passing by. Generally, you don’t need a push button for the light, but in certain situations it’s nice to have it adjustable via push buttons. I do need a push button. If I let this run through a presence detector, the KNX forum recommends a delay time of at least 15 minutes. Then I see the kitchen light from the living room for 15 more minutes, and that will annoy me for 15 minutes. So I really need push buttons to turn the light on, complete the task, then turn the light off, and afterward, the programmed lighting works as intended.
The main problem is more the cost. Are there really people who only use KNX for lighting and blinds, and long-term completely skip window contacts, presence detectors, visualization, servers, ETS upgrades, weather stations, alarm system-like functions, cameras, doorbell integration, occasional new push buttons, heating, ventilation, voice control, etc.? I mean not just skipping one or two things but all of these? And in the end, this leads to an additional cost of 20,000–30,000 euros.
Another question, what are the “start-up” costs for KNX? Without automating anything yet, I’ll need at least:
- ETS 5 Lite
- Bus power supply
- A larger distribution board or a dedicated KNX cabinet?
- Interface for PC to bus (is there anything available over IP and USB?)
- Anything else?
I don’t find this topic difficult at all.
We solved the hallway lighting issue by simply turning on the light switch when entering the house. When going upstairs, you can turn off the light behind you.
I would have a problem with motion sensor lights in the hallway: I don’t want to be on display when someone rings the doorbell. It’s that convenient, I’m telling you. You’ve probably noticed that too.
What I find very practical about our system is that when I park my car in the carport late at night, I use the outdoor light at the front door to find my way, and my husband, who is asleep, isn’t woken up by a light that automatically turns on (somewhere near the couch or even upstairs near the bedroom).
After 3 years, our property is now fenced in a way that it’s visually private enough so we can still enjoy our beautifully lit garden from the inside even with the shutters open at night.
Washing machine, electric toothbrush, shaver, handheld vacuum: all of these can run or charge while we’re away, and we’re not limited to certain outlets… but I’m sure KNX has solutions for that too?!
Please don’t take my little jabs personally, but sometimes people just make life more complicated than it has to be or needs to be.
Unfortunately, I haven’t dealt with the KNX system myself yet, but I often read along. Now I have spontaneously joined in on a comment… Spontaneous, meaning I might live today what I didn’t live yesterday (going to bed early and watching the sunset from inside, reading in the bathtub instead of just resting, coming home and having a glass of wine with the neighbor before going inside, and so on).
I can’t imagine KNX is made for these everyday small moments, just as I can’t imagine that many people I know have the exact same needs every day.
Surely some features might be great, but I doubt the proportionality of the benefits to the costs.
We solved the hallway lighting issue by simply turning on the light switch when entering the house. When going upstairs, you can turn off the light behind you.
I would have a problem with motion sensor lights in the hallway: I don’t want to be on display when someone rings the doorbell. It’s that convenient, I’m telling you. You’ve probably noticed that too.
What I find very practical about our system is that when I park my car in the carport late at night, I use the outdoor light at the front door to find my way, and my husband, who is asleep, isn’t woken up by a light that automatically turns on (somewhere near the couch or even upstairs near the bedroom).
After 3 years, our property is now fenced in a way that it’s visually private enough so we can still enjoy our beautifully lit garden from the inside even with the shutters open at night.
Washing machine, electric toothbrush, shaver, handheld vacuum: all of these can run or charge while we’re away, and we’re not limited to certain outlets… but I’m sure KNX has solutions for that too?!
Please don’t take my little jabs personally, but sometimes people just make life more complicated than it has to be or needs to be.
Unfortunately, I haven’t dealt with the KNX system myself yet, but I often read along. Now I have spontaneously joined in on a comment… Spontaneous, meaning I might live today what I didn’t live yesterday (going to bed early and watching the sunset from inside, reading in the bathtub instead of just resting, coming home and having a glass of wine with the neighbor before going inside, and so on).
I can’t imagine KNX is made for these everyday small moments, just as I can’t imagine that many people I know have the exact same needs every day.
Surely some features might be great, but I doubt the proportionality of the benefits to the costs.
@Grym
That’s exactly what I mean. It just doesn’t end. Either you’re disciplined and decide, “I don’t want that huge switch panel in the living room!” and only use KNX for that specific purpose. Then maybe you manage with a few hundred euros more. But if you want this and that as well... it seems endless. And you’re never really done.
Whether the switch for 500€ has to be there, or if you really need it in every room—I think you’re slightly overdoing it. The fact is, there are also very ugly switches.
If I understood correctly, your scenario with walking into the kitchen can be handled by the switches using the so-called “pat” function. Look that up.
Basically, I agree with you that a simple switch has become second nature not only to you but also to children (!!!) and your guests. There was a picture earlier in this thread of a silver/aluminum switch panel with no labels at all. What is that supposed to be? Nobody will get it without instructions. Four to six touch sensors and then trying to just turn on the lights? That’s no longer helpful; it’s a hassle.
But: nobody is forced to install that €550 item with multiple integrated touch sensors everywhere. You can also use normal toggle switches. Maybe you have more buttons in the living room, but in the children’s room just light on/off and blinds up/down. So, similar to a conventional wiring setup.
That’s exactly what I mean. It just doesn’t end. Either you’re disciplined and decide, “I don’t want that huge switch panel in the living room!” and only use KNX for that specific purpose. Then maybe you manage with a few hundred euros more. But if you want this and that as well... it seems endless. And you’re never really done.
Whether the switch for 500€ has to be there, or if you really need it in every room—I think you’re slightly overdoing it. The fact is, there are also very ugly switches.
If I understood correctly, your scenario with walking into the kitchen can be handled by the switches using the so-called “pat” function. Look that up.
Basically, I agree with you that a simple switch has become second nature not only to you but also to children (!!!) and your guests. There was a picture earlier in this thread of a silver/aluminum switch panel with no labels at all. What is that supposed to be? Nobody will get it without instructions. Four to six touch sensors and then trying to just turn on the lights? That’s no longer helpful; it’s a hassle.
But: nobody is forced to install that €550 item with multiple integrated touch sensors everywhere. You can also use normal toggle switches. Maybe you have more buttons in the living room, but in the children’s room just light on/off and blinds up/down. So, similar to a conventional wiring setup.
S
Sebastian7931 Aug 2016 22:03Here is our awful light switch panel – logically arranged and easy for anyone to use. The lights controlled here can also be operated and dimmed from two other locations.
Grym, if I were you, I would really avoid this – to be honest.
Grym, if I were you, I would really avoid this – to be honest.