My apartment in central Jersey (where I am on the weekdays) has too few lights in general, and half of them are lamps. So, to get full light, I still need to go over to the lamp, which is low on a desk, reach under the lamp shade, and turn it on.
Many apartments are like this, where they expect the tenant to use lamps. It's inconvenient.
Kind of annoying
So, I figure, why not a plug with a switch or just some kind of switch where it turns ON the circuit/plug/appliance when it SENSES light, and OFF when the light lowers. This way, the one already installed wall light switch will turn on all the lights in the apartment, and also off.
There might need to be controls so you can calibrate it first to light levels. And of course there will be issues with dimming. And of course, the way the thing works is first it senses light, then it turns on the circuit while ignoring the photocell for like 10 seconds, then goes back into sensing mode.
So the wall switch will finally conveniently control all the lights and lamps-- EdwinBakery, Dec 07 2012 Wouldn't you just go into a feedback loop where it's impossible to shut the light off once it's turned on? Particularly if you have several of them, you'd have real problems with reaching the proper light threshold.
Just replace the switch with an X10 or other similar home automation unit. It takes less than five minutes to swap out the switch, and then you can put remote controlled plugs anywhere in the apartment and have them all operated by a single switch.
You don't even need to replace the switch if you don't want to. You can just get a master control unit that connects between an outlet and one lamp, and then operate every single lamp in your apartment from a single remote control (with the appropriate lamp modules on each lamp, of course).-- ytk, Dec 07 2012 Except then walking between the light and the sensor would cause it to shut off. This isn't a completely unworkable solution to the problem, it's just far from the best solution currently available. If there were a market for such devices they would be sold already.-- ytk, Dec 07 2012 random, halfbakery