Skip to content

Home lighting control that replaces the bank of switches

For houses in Ireland being built, extended or lived in already. Formwave designs, installs and programmes lighting control, so one button press sets a room, a floor or the whole house the way you want it. Start with one room and grow from there.

Book a free design consultation

What you get from it

One button instead of a bank of switches.

A keypad replaces the row of switches, one for every lighting circuit in the room. Pressing a button sets a scene rather than switching a single circuit on or off. One plate on the wall instead of six.

Every light in the room set at once.

A scene puts every light at a level chosen in advance, each one at its own level. Evenings, cooking, film, going to bed. One button each.

Any light, from any keypad.

The system is centralised, so any light on it can be reached from any keypad on it. One button beside the bed turns the whole house off.

Lighting that runs on its own.

Schedules and sensors hold levels through the day without anyone touching a keypad. The house comes on before you get home and settles down at night whether or not you remembered.

A system that grows.

The design is decided once and added to later. One room now does not shut off the rest of the house.

What it actually is: scenes, not circuits

A switch turns a circuit on or off. That is the whole of what it can do.

A keypad recalls a scene. One press sets every light in the room to a level chosen in advance, each one at its own level. Because the system is centralised, any light on it can be controlled from any keypad on it.

That difference is what people are buying, and it is decided long before anyone sees a keypad.

The decision that gets made before you know you are making it

Most houses are specified with one dimmed circuit per room. That single decision makes scenes impossible before anything is installed, because with one circuit there is nothing to set at different levels against anything else.

Two dimmable circuits in each main room is the minimum for scenes to feel like scenes. One is enough for a hall or a small room.

It is decided by the electrician at first fix. If your walls are open, this is the thing worth getting right.

Two ways to start

Building or extending.

With walls open, load control sits in a central panel and the keypads carry no load. It is the cleaner answer and the cheaper one to arrive at, because the containment is going in anyway.

Already living in it.

No rewiring. Dimming goes behind the fittings or in the ceiling void, and keypads go into the back boxes you already have. The house stays as it is while it happens.

Already a Formwave customer adding the next room, tell us and we will pick up the existing design.

What it costs

Nothing on this page has a figure on it, because a figure without a design behind it is a guess.

What moves the cost is the number of rooms, the number of dimmable circuits in them, and whether the walls are open. A retrofit of one room and a whole new build are not the same conversation.

After the consultation you get an itemised proposal, priced line by line, with nothing you have not agreed to. Nothing has to be done at once.

How it works

  1. 1

    Consultation.

    Free, at the house or on a call. We look at the rooms, how they are used, and what stage the build is at.

  2. 2

    Design and proposal.

    We produce the design and an itemised proposal. If you are at first fix, this is where the circuits get specified correctly.

  3. 3

    Install and programming.

    We install, programme the scenes and commission the system, then walk the house with you and adjust the levels until they are right.

  4. 4

    Aftercare.

    We hold the design. Changes, additions and support come back to the same people who built it.

Why Formwave

We design, supply, programme, install, commission and support the system ourselves. Nothing is subcontracted, so there is one company to call and one company that knows what was installed.

Dublin based, working across Ireland. Accredited and trained on Lutron, Control4, Crestron and Ubiquiti.

Common questions

Can lighting control be retrofitted without rewiring?
Yes, on a wireless platform. Dimmers and switches are replaced in the wall boxes you already have, and the keypads are battery powered, so no cable is pulled for them. A wired system is a different matter and needs the walls open.
Does it still work if the internet goes down?
Yes. The systems run locally. Keypads, scenes, schedules and sensors carry on with no internet at all. What you lose is app access from outside the house, and our ability to log in and make changes remotely.
Can it control the light fittings I have already chosen?
Usually, but it is checked rather than assumed. LED fittings dim by different methods and the driver inside the fitting decides which one. We ask for the lighting schedule at design stage and check every fitting against the dimming modules, because a mismatch shows up later as flicker, or as a floor the lamp will not dim below.
What happens if a keypad fails?
On a wired system the load control sits in the panel, not the keypad, so the lights keep working from every other keypad, from the app and from any schedule running, and the keypad is a swap. On a wireless system the in-wall dimmer is the load device, so a failure there affects that circuit until it is replaced.
How long does it take?
An install in an occupied house is measured in days. The design and proposal come before that, and we agree the dates with you.

Book a free design consultation

Tell us what stage the house is at and we will tell you what needs deciding, and when. If you are at first fix, come now rather than later.

Book a free design consultation

Formwave, Unit 8, H11 Centrepoint Business Park, Oak Road, Dublin 12, D12 YFX3. Phone +353 1 555 0544.