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Hardwired vs. Wireless Lighting Control
Installing a wireless lighting control system in an existing home can be three to four times faster than a hardwired system.
As the market continues to transition, integrators sometimes face the choice of installing hardwired vs. wireless.
Here are five factors to consider when making that decision.
Product Cost: In general, hardwired lighting control systems tend to be about 20 percent to 30 percent less expensive than their wireless counterparts. That pricing difference also extends into the motorized shade control category, which is a form of natural light control.
One variable these days is the cost of copper wiring. It is a commodity that fluctuates. Right now, it is relatively low compared to some of the high spikes the market has seen in the past few years. A 3,500-square-foot home will require several thousand linear feet of wire, according to David Weinstein, vice president of residential sales for Lutron. Advantage: Hardwired
Reliability: Consumers, even more than integrators, are becoming comfortable with wireless technology. The pervasiveness of wireless computer networks, iPhone, iPads, etc., have even made older homeowners less fearful of “invisible” technology. On the other hand, hardwired systems are 99.9 percent bulletproof.
It is interesting to note the increased penetration of wireless in the home security field. Many motion sensors, doors and window contacts and keypads are now wireless. Security, of course, is a field where reliability is the most important issue, so the increasing use of wireless is a signal to integrators of the increasing stability of the technology. Advantage: Hardwired
Project Size: In the past, wireless systems had a more limited scale. But new systems, such as Lutron’s RadioRa2, can accommodate up to 200 devices in a home as large as 12,000 square feet. For perspective, a 3,000-square-foot home with lots of control might have 60 devices. So in general wireless is no longer limited in scale for most homes. Advantage: Tie
Labor Cost: The labor costs for installing a wireless system can be calculated in hours, while labor costs for wired systems can be calculated in days.
For example, a 60-device wireless lighting control system in a 3,000-square-foot home can be done by one technician in one day. A comparable hardwired system will take one man three to four days, depending on the number of obstacles faced when pulling wires. Advantage: Wireless
Client Satisfaction: I am not talking about post-installation satisfaction, but the actual angst that can be created from a team of guys crawling in attics, drilling holes, creating dust, etc. from a hardwired installation. When an integrator walks into a nicely appointed, spotless home, wireless should immediately be considered.
In many cases, a homeowner – from a neat freak to an Oscar Madison - will choose not to have an installation done simply because they do not want to have the disruption in the home. Clearly, a wireless system can be installed much quicker with very little disruption. Most of the labor cost is programming, not pulling wires or drilling holes.
The overall time of the job also plays into client satisfaction. As noted above, a wireless installation is routinely one-third the time of a hardwired installation. Advantage: Wireless
Final Rank: The bottom line: installing a wireless lighting control system is less expensive for integrators. According to Weinstein, it’s about 3X to 4X less expensive.
“When you analyze the cost of wireless vs. hardwired, the aggregate cost of wireless is clearly less for the integrator but also it is better for the client,” he says, adding that he believes wireless installations also help close more sales that otherwise would not occur. Advantage: Wireless
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34 Comments (displayed in order by date/time)
jon…In addition to Leviton’s Vizia RF (zwave mesh), CentraLites JetStream (zigbee mesh) also has no central processor and has load bearing switches that have “extra” buttons that can be used for scenes and a table top 8-button controller as well. Also, powerline carrier solutions do not rely on a central processor, and are as easy to implement as wireless solutions since they rely on existing switch locations and existing wires.
While I agree that the article could use better research and wider coverage on the product and technologies, I think the personal attacks are definitely not contributing to the discussion.
We’ve been using CentraLite’s JetStream dimmers which are based on the Zigbee protocol for creating a mesh network. Right out of the box, this would be considered a brainless system as it has no centralized controller. One of the reason’s we selected this system is the openess and acceptance of the Zigbee protocol as a standard for wireless communication in the smart grid.
Although I’m not deeply familiar with the other mesh networks mentioned here (I know that C4 uses Zigbee as well), I think the mesh topology of a wireless network offers some powerful architecture that was overlooked in the article (being focused on Radio Ra) as well as in the discussion.
One example is the ability of the command to hope through other devices until it reaches its target. I see this as a very important feature from redundancy perspective. It is almost guaranteed that the command will find its way to the target dimmer and execute, regardless of the distance or if other dimmers are broken. In this scenario, the home owner would experience smaller outage that is limited to a very small area in case of malfunction.
In a mesh network, each device is completely independed of others and can communicate with the other devices - hence creating the mesh network - to establish control over wider areas.
Another advantage that I see with wireless networked dimmers is the extraction of the logic (scenes) from the dimmers. Again, with meshed dimmers, one dimmer can trigger other dimmers, which can trigger other dimmers and so on… and create a scene. Not the optimal, but definitely a good backup when the centralized system fails.
On top of this, the “centralized” logic is being created either on a controller or on other computer but is really limited to scenes and more complex scenarios.
By taking this approach, the system is significantly simplified, the risk is managed and the user’s experience is enhanced.
As for cost effectiveness, obviously labor of wiring is compared to the higher cost of wireless dimmers. However, we need to evaluate additional aspects - if a dimmer fails, how easy it would be to replace it, re-program it and get it back online.
just my 2 cents at 10 pm…. 
Very funny reading all the comments, so funny I forgot about the article. wireless has gotten very reliable for retro work and I have quite a few Lutron Homeworks projects out there to prove it. I would say that Crestron is probably just as good but the devices themselves have been a challenge with designers. I have heard enough mixed reviews about control4 to stay away, but I am sure that will change soon. bottom line is there are solutions. Back to the article for a second for a few comments.
1. the cost difference is not that great when you figure in wire and labor to run it.
2.where is this amazing technician that can remove and reinstall 60 device in one day? even if i am super generous and assume all the wiring is perfect and there are no problems that is a 15 hour day! then he can do another line and finish up the programming. just saying…
I recently decided to make a huge change. Started with Lutron, changed out for crestron, and now recently changed out for control4. I for one can tell you I am much happier on the control4 lighting devices and the programming options then the other two.
Just dropping my $.02