The information below was originally provided to a home owner who was experiencing some confusion in understanding the fundamentals of the operation of the PIXIE solution.
It has been provided with specific ( anonymous ) details which related to their specific home an requirements, but is relevant for all home owners.
The Basics #
In most normally wired homes for controlling lighting ( and other devices), a standard light switch or dimmer is electrically connected via cabling to a lighting circuit.
When you operate that switch or dimmer, this device either isolates the electricity from running to the lights or it allows it to flow. Dimmers go one step further and allow the amount of energy allowed to flow to be variable and therefore, the amount of light produced varies.
That’s a very brief ( and probably oversimplified) summary.
When these normal switches and dimmers are replaced with a PIXIE dimmer or switch, the PIXIE device now controls the flow of electricity to those lights. This part of the operation is more or less the same as a standard switch or dimmer.
This is the important bit … The PIXIE devices MUST be electrically connected (somewhere – and typically at the wall plate location) to the load they are controlling – so this description from [NAME DELETED] (“ there wont be any wiring from the switch to the light on any configuration throughout the whole house”) is an impossibility for any system. Something must ultimately control the connected lights.
You can simply press the button on any PIXIE device and it will operate the connected light load as a normal switch does. This is the beauty of this setup, normal controlled is maintained AND wireless control and additional smarts are ALSO added.
The Wireless Part #
( Hopefully you should now see there are actually wires – the switch and dimmer are connected via wires to the electrical circuits [lights])
Once the PIXIE devices are installed, and added to the PIXIE App, a few important changes occur – which allow you to control all devices from anywhere in the home wirelessly.
1) Those PIXIE switches and dimmers are now securely linked to your mobile device and can only be controlled wirelessly from a Mobile phone with a PIXIE app (on multiple phones if you so choose) – no one else can control these devices wirelessly. Anyone can control these devices by pressing a button on the wall of course.
2) In adding all of these devices to the App you have also created a MESH or a collection of Bluetooth devices, which all communicate to each other using Bluetooth.
3) When you open the app, it automatically selects a SINGLE PIXIE device to which to connect, and when you press any buttons on the App to control anything in the home, all of these messages are sent via this single device – AND THIS DEVICE performs a few actions:
a. Responds to the message – that is: “Message received do I need to do anything – turn on / off / dim?”
b. Re-transmits the message to all other devices which are now part of the mesh
c. All devices repeat this process ensuring that all messages are sent to all devices in the mesh.
d. This happens in milliseconds.
4) Depending on where you are in the home physically, depends on which device the App will connect to. It will choose the device which has the strongest signal to you ( and your devices ) Bluetooth signal and as long as your mesh is designed well ( as per the design provided in this case), all devices can be controlled from everywhere.
So no matter where you are in the home you can wirelessly control all PIXIE connected devices.
Wireless 2 Way #
Ok so that’s the basics and wireless part, but what about these 2 way switches?
As we now have a mesh built we already know one way to control the home is from the Apps.
Another way is from a remote or ‘secondary’ device.
The PIXIE Dimmer and Switch are known as a “Master’ device – that is, a device which actually directly controls the electricity.
The remote devices, in this case your 2 way devices, are known as Secondary devices – That is, a device which communicates directly to the mesh AND which is powered from the electricity in the home BUT does not directly control the electricity.
Instead the secondary device sends a message, much like when you press a button on the App, and the MESH responds the same way as when you send a message from your App.
This means that you can have buttons on the wall anywhere in the home to control everything in the home – even though they are not directly connected by wires to the devices they are controlling.
The PIXIE Touch Panel is an example of a super powerful Secondary device that allows you to control all devices, groups and scenes both from a touch panel and buttons, with the added benefit of always being on and present – and more cost effective than installing individual Secondary buttons to control every device, groups and scene individually.
In short whole home control from anywhere.
The Smarts #
This is the real power of PIXIE.
– You have direct control of all devices from the wall using standard electrical wiring – peace of mind (“I always have normal, direct control”) and standard wiring practices for simplicity
– You also have control of all of these devices from your Mobile App/s.
– AND – you can choose to have buttons on the wall – wherever you like – to control any other device in the home.
Of course PIXIE goes one step further with functions like Groups, Scenes and Schedules.
Groups #
A Group is a collection of PIXIE Devices – in your example – everything upstairs and everything downstairs could be 2 separate groups.
o From the App you can choose to control the GROUP instead of ( as well as ) the individual devices
o From the Secondary PIXIE device on the wall, you can choose to control the Group – defining the ‘members’ of the group and which group the secondary devices control is done during setup and can be changed at anytime in the future – remember they are a Bluetooth remote control
o Yes your whole home could be a single Group too
o You can have a lot of different Groups.
Scenes #
A Scene is a collection of devices with pre-determine operation – A Common Scene is “Welcome Home” which when activated (either from the app or a secondary device on the wall) produces the same outcome each time – For example Dim the hallway lights to 50%, Open the Blinds, Dim the Kitchen Pedants to 90% and Switch on the Floor lamp in the lounge room.
o This Scene is a pre-determined MOOD that is setup in the App
o This Scene can then be activated from the App AND activated from a Secondary device on the wall too
o This effectively takes a ‘Software’ functions and gives it a hardware action – Being able to recall this scene from a button on the wall.
Schedules #
A Schedule is a time based function which can control an individual Device, a Group or a Scene
o For example “At 9am, with Group ‘Whole Home’ go to OFF” – because you know that everyone is at school or at work at 9am, and the children always leave the bathroom lights and fan on, as well as their bedroom lights. This Schedule turns all of this off Monday to Friday
o You choose which days at time for each Schedule you create
o These operate automatically in exactly the same way as controlling the device, group or scene from the App or from the Secondary device – but the system automatically does this based on time and day.
o The system knows the time and day because when setup using the App, it uses time and day information to set the devices time and day.
Voice Control and PIXIE Gateway #
The PIXIE Gateway – ( SGW3/BTAM) is a little gray box which literally acts as a bridge between the Bluetooth Mesh in your home and the Internet.
Its must be connected to your home network by either connecting it to your Wi-Fi in the home or plugging directly into your modem / router via an Ethernet cable.
When using the PIXIE Gateway, its also necessary to use the PIXIE PLUS app – which is also free.
Once connected its then possible to introduce 4 additional, advanced features into your PIXIE Home, including voice control.
1) You can control your home from anywhere as along as you and your home have an internet connection
2) You can choose who has control of which devices, groups and scenes, whilst at home and whilst not at home
3) You can have an unlimited number of guests with finely tuned control access
4) You can control your home with your voice using a large number of different voice assistants and cloud based services for further control and integration.
Fundamentally though, no matter how you’re controlling the home – voice, App, buttons on the wall – the control concepts are the same and the system operates in the same manner.
