Very simply a remote controller for wall plates that screws into light fixture sockets and causes lamps plugged into wall outlets to illuminate when you flick the switch. Powered by the light fixture, no batteries required. Remote controlled outlet plates are common but come with the inconvenience of requiring that you keep track of the remote and occasionally replace the batteries. This would be an alternative or supplementary system for triggering remote outlets by synchronizing them with a ceiling fixture and wall switch. If there is any prior art on this I can't find it.
-- WcW, Jul 20 2009

Let me see whether I understand this. You throw a wall switch, turning on light bulb A. In the socket of light bulb A, in line with the actual light bulb, is a remote control B that sends a signal via radio to the receiver that is installed in light bulb C, causing light bulb C to turn on (if its switch was on to begin with). In other words, this system would let you "slave" any fixture to any other, without adding wiring. Yes?
-- jutta, Jul 20 2009


yes. Without installing anything more complicated than a light bulb. Screw on to bottom of bulb, screw bulb in. Then plug remote unit into wall and plug fixture to be controlled into it.
-- WcW, Jul 21 2009


There have certainly been times I would have found this useful, since the light switch for a room controlled an outlet that was poorly placed to control a light. What I ended up doing was buying one of the bulky-style X10 remotes, cutting a hole in the back, and mounting it over the light switch. Something like this device might have been handy. Unfortunately, I don't see any practical way for it to work with X10, since turning off the switch would remove any means by which the master device could signal the slave or anyone else.
-- supercat, Jul 22 2009


a small capacitor would allow the system to send a series of "OFF NOW, OFF NOW, OFF NOW" signals to the switch plate when the current was shut off. Very simple really.

Additional Applications:

synchronize plug in outdoor lighting with a conventional porch light

shut off fountains and other decorative electricity users when you leave the room (rooms without windows)

an intuitive "master switch" for energy vampire devices.
-- WcW, Jul 22 2009


// a small capacitor would allow the system to send a series of "OFF NOW, OFF NOW, OFF NOW" signals to the switch plate when the current was shut off. Very simple really. //

X10 works by feeding a small 120Khz signal onto the AC line. If the switch is open, the module would be disconnected from the line and thus have no way of sending the pulses.

It would be possible to send out a signal using an X10-compatible radio transmission format, but if one were going to do that one might as well send it via some better alternative radio format.
-- supercat, Jul 22 2009


the drive by wire systems could function on a direct signal: no signal=switch off, signal detected=switch on, so this could simply be an add on to the X10 standard although I see no reason why it would have to use that standard if another cheaper or more robust one was available.
-- WcW, Jul 22 2009



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