Home Automation Domotica Forum Europe, Bwired Forum

My home automation English isn't what it should be, but here goes:

Just recently bought a house and home automation is on my list of things to integrate into my house. The thing is that the standard X10/A10 light switches are ugly, so I want to go for the modules which I can place behind a regular switch.

Situation is this: Most rooms have x number of halogen lights(230V) around the border of the room and one central lamp. What I want is to be able to both control on/off(duh!) and be able to dim them.

Questions:
1) What modules allow this? (Xanura DIX2?)
2) Is a dual 'impuls switch' the one I need to control this?
3) Links to online switching material are welcome. Jung and Gira are the ones I have looked at recently. I'm looking for modern, yet stylish.

The functionality I'm looking for is to have a dual switch to control both light sources. When I push the (left or right)top of the switch, the light goes on in the last remembered dimming position. When I push the bottom the light switches off. Secondly, when I hold the top after light on, the light should increase brightness. When I hold the bottom, light should dim.

For future generations, let me reply to my own questions, now I am somewhat 'the wiser'

The x number of halogen lights were in serie, so in effect this is just one light and the central lamp is another, adding up to two. Take note that most dimming micromodules only go upto 250W, and officially you need to degrade that taking into account heating(in stone walls vs wood etc.) since there modules tend to warm up. Xanura states that they only recommend 5 hours of continiuos use of the DAIX12 dimmers to guarantee dimming capacity.

1) So the DAIX12 allows this for one lamp only. There are some S10 modules which support dimming for two lights in the same module, but experiences with this are unknown to me. Unofficial and unsupported is using a twee-vlaks impulsswitch and include two micromodules, but heating will become an issue here. Some people on this forum have good experiences with this, but again, not supported and could even be a fire hassard.

2) If you want to control dimming of a light, you have two options with most micromodules: 1) Control on/off <b>and</b> bright/dim with one puls switch only. 2) Control on/bright with one puls and off/dim with another. For instance: For one light and option 1 you would only need 1 pulse. One light and option two you need a two pulse switch, etc.

3) I've found the (IMO) beautiful Berker B3 series, which is a whole range of good quality and design. Aluminum frames with antraciet/black buttons. I've fitted my whole house with these and I love them. The basic products of this series is also available at most hardware stores(Gamma, Praxis, Karwei). Sadly though the prices are rediculously high and you cannot get impuls switches (because most people don't use these). I ordered them though a professional installer company. Even though they added 15% on top, I still saved 500+ euro's on the Karwei prices. To give you an example, Karwei asks 8,95 euro for a wall socket with grounding, I got them for 4,11 euro's.