Aqara wall switch review



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If there is any Xiaomi device that has grabbed the attention of many of us I think it may be this one, the Aqara wireless switch and it is because of the game it can give in our homes and the facility to make all our rooms smart.

As I told you in this other article Aqara switches are valid to replace the normal switches that we have installed at home, but have nuances that will make feasible their purchase and use or discard them definitively.

Reviewing its characteristics we see that we find two models, one with wall installation, which is the one I'm going to talk about today and another without installation that also has a Zigbee connection, this one we will leave for a future article.

We can buy the Aqara for wall installation with one or two switches, according to our preferences.

The switch has different electronic protections such as protection against over temperature or over voltage and has two LED indicators to indicate whether it is on or off as well as to make the link with our Gateway.

The switch can handle powers of up to 800W per channel, so in the case of a single button switch will be 800W the maximum consumption supported and 1600W in the case of opting for the double button.

Something very important when acquiring the Aqara Switch is to know that the key is not switched And that means? Well, the simplest explanation to understand it is the following.

If to control a lamp we have more than one switch in the room, the Aqara Switch is not good for us, not at least in a simple way because we would have to modify the installation to make it work for us.

In the example we see we have a first circuit with two switched keys if SW1 or SW2 change position would close or open the circuit indistinctly.



In the second example I have removed the switch key SW1 and I have placed a simple key like the Aqara, now the circuit would only work if SW4 is in its lower position and we press SW3 (Aqara) therefore the circuit is not well implemented.

In the third example we can see how a simple key would work, every time we press on SW5 the circuit closes completing it.

A way to use an Aqara in a room with more than one switch would be to condemn those switch and leaving only one in one, which would be where we would put the Aqara.

On the other hand we must take into account the form and design of the register boxes of our house, if we have round register boxes will not be possible to install the switches and even with the square will have to cut some areas to allow the Aqara to fit inside the register box.

If we meet all the requirements, the installation will be simple, just remove our old switch and mount the new Aqara in place. Then we can link the new switches to the Mi Home app.

Remember that to be able to use these switches is completely necessary to have the Gateway, at least if we want to make the house smarter, but we have the Gateway will work as normal switches.

After making the link we can generate our intelligent scenes and get that the lamp that is controlled by the Aqara Switch can turn on, off or change from on to off and vice versa depending on the previous action we leave selected.

For example, that the movement sensor detects some presence, when the sensor of doors and windows changes of state or when we realize some other action on the devices that we have of the range My Home.

If we look at the construction there are not many hiccups to put, everything is correct and the materials meet the expectations perfectly, obviously everything is made of plastic.

Something that I have also been asked is if it would be possible to use them to handle electric blinds, because in my opinion if it would be possible whenever we bought the double switch, so we would use one button to raise the blinds and another to lower them.

One thing we should look closely at would be the consumption of the shutter motor which should not be greater than 800W.