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Comment by johnchristopher | Hacker News Reader

Just a rambling note: that kind of light switch used in the article header is the kind of timeless design I dislike. When the light bulb needs to be replaced I can't tell anymore which position is on or off and if I am getting a burn when screwing the replacement in. It's even worse when there are multiple switches for the same light bulb :D.

Funny thing is that the same experience is conveyed through skeuomorphic interfaces more often than not. /rambling_off

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It is very common to have multiple switches controlling the same light (example: two switchs on both side of the bed controlling a single ceiling light).

The position of an electrical switch is not designed to signal the status of what it controls.

Source: I was an electrician apprentice in my teens.

Edit: wiki (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiway_switching)

If my electrician installed half of the single switch circuits with the switch upside down I wouldn't ask him to come back for the next job.

Within a house they should be consistent. But I have some American friends in Europe with their switches wired the US way.

You are missing the point, it’s a feature not a bug.

Single-switch is commonly installed with the top-pressed-in meaning “on”. For multiway-switch the position is not a status indicator. Both types of switches can be present in multiple places around the house. Thus, position of “a switch” is not an indicator.

Example: my living room light panel (Vancouver, build circa. 2005). All lights are on in both pictures: http://imgur.com/8CTZOHZ

In some hotels of the world, light switches always go back to their default position upon toggle. It is counterintuitive that there's one and only one affordance to turn off a light and to turn it on.

Using lighted switches, I'm pretty sure that one could have both switches lit when the light was off, and both switches dark when the light was on.

> The position of an electrical switch is not designed to signal the status of what it controls.

Wouldn’t the right affordance (at least for multiway switches) be a button, then? Especially with an indicator LED in the that is lit by drawing from line voltage, thus showing whether the completed system is on or off.

A button closes (or opens) a circuit for a short while and then goes back. This is not the expected behavior.

With that setup you need a central control that the buttons toggle on or off. I imagine that would be more complex than just running a cable from one switch to the next. Not exactly the most user friendly solution, however possibly the cheapest.

You can have a mechanical button toggle the position of the interior switching hardware. Every press will flip the switch inside to the opposite path. Like the button on top of a retractable pen.

Maybe a bit more complicated; there are moving parts required to index the action. But doable without extra wiring or centralized control.

Not really. I was imagining a toggle switch button—like the kind that goes in and out to express its state, where the “in” state is literally bridging contacts with the back of the button—but without the in/out state being exposed externally, since it’s not accurate to the state of the system as a whole. Instead, it would be a spring-loaded toggle where the spring is less compressed when on and more compressed when off, to make the button face remain at the same push-depth either way, while still having an in-out switch behind it. Like the mechanical NumLock key on early keyboards.

So each switch-button is still connected in series; all the LED indicator faces on the switches are powered by line voltage of the circuit; and so, when the circuit is completed, all the switches become lit; and when any switch is toggled, the circuit is broken, and so no LED is then receiving power.

I consider that a feature in a way.

For a very long time I had the opinion because the German plugs are reversible they are inferior in design however what I learned is that it encouraged safer device design because it both line and neutral are not exposed on devices as a result.

Similar rules apply to bulbs: since you generally cannot tell safely if a a switch is on or off it encouraged the installation of RCDs and mandatory wiring plans that let you switch off parts of the installation.

Oh, in Norway at least, I believe the norm is to wire the light switches so that when it tilts inwards (top part closest to the wall), the light is on.

I haven’t looked up the electric code to see whether it is a requirement, but it definitely is considered best practice. I’d suspect other countries, too, to have some sort of preference, whether codified or not.

In America we tend to do the same. Problems arise when you have multiple switches toggling a single light though. If one switch is ON and the other is OFF and the light is ON, then when you flip the OFF switch to ON the light will turn OFF. And when they are both ON, to actually turn the light ON, you need to flip one of the switches to be OFF

Not just Norway, it is exceedingly common everywhere in the world.

Down is off, up is on. Alternatively - press on the down part to switch off, press at the top part to switch on.

It's the opposide in Denmark. Top pressed in, the switch is off.

https://i.imgur.com/TWH1YjY.jpg

Off-topic, but I find the sockets and switches in Denmark to be weird. They are so different from the ones in Norway and Sweden. Maybe newer houses are more similar to here, but I've mostly seen those you posted in Denmark. The socket is basically just two holes.

This system of sockets is unique to Denmark, and it is still used. However, the Schuko system was allowed to be installed, a few years back.

Source: Me, danish electrician.

It's the opposite in Australia: "down" is on; "up" is off. This is nominally off: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_switch#/media/File:Austr...

Light switches should disappear. Lights should turn themselves on as needed or when asked to.

"Computer, turn the lights on"

Star Trek is not anymore what it used to be.

It's "Computer, lights!" and we're still not close to Star Trek, because our computing is ridiculously fragmented. Instead of a unified, configurable system doing our bidding, we have a whole ecosystem of apps that try to be everything but helpful. Can you imagine captain Picard saying, "computer, tell Hue to turn on the lights", or "computer, tell Northrop Grumman® Unified Weapons Platform™ to charge Phasers™"?

"Hey Google, turn on the lights!" works just fine.

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