3-gang dimmers?

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1

Hi guys,

been stuggling with the following conundrum:

  • I have 3 groups of 6 dimmable LED downlights which I want to add Zigbee (with dimming!) capability to
  • All 3 are 3-way operable
  • There are currently 3, 3-gang wall plates (i.e. 3 switches on each wall plate) which operate those same lights from various positions in the house
  • I don't want to be installing 3 separate dimmer wall plates instead of the one wall plate in any of the locations as that would just be plain ugly as it would occupy too much real estate on the wall
  • I'm conscious of the fact that some dimming wall plates do not allow 2 or 3-way functionality with another smart switch, they only allow dumb switches. My old dumb switch wall plates look ugly as sin and I desperately want to replace them but then the looks wouldn't match those of the smart dimmer wall plates...
  • My wife is not keen on having scene switch wireless wall dimmers (if they even exist) as she doesn't relish the idea of batteries running out, needing to be replaced or switches not working when they've run out of battery

So ideally what I'm looking for is a zigbee dimmer wall plate that is the same size of the current 3-gang wall plates and either has a button for each light group that allows you to adjust for dimming based on various touch types (long press, short press, double press, that kind of thing) or
lets you select the target light to dim before actually dimming.

Something like this with Zigbee in a 3-gang design, while accepting 3-way from other smart dimmers would be awesome! ButI'm afraid I'm just dreaming at this point...

2

I'm afraid I'm confused by the use of "dimmer wall plate".
And "the one wall plate in ...." is this instead of the triple wall plate of the existing switches?

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3

sorry, this is just my clumsy way of trying to distinguish between dimmers that are "in-wall" and sit behind traditional switches such as this one:

And switches placed on the wall (whether traditional or smart) such as this one:

The latter being my definition of a 'wall plate' :smiley:
Hope that makes more sense?

4

My guess you're not from US?
I think what confusing is the term gang is different in US and EU.
In US, each gang has a fixed size box/wall plate (+trim), so 3-gang is 3x long box/wall plate, while in EU, seems like they pack multiple gangs into 1 square box?

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5

Correct, not from the US. To complicate matters further, I'm from the EU but living in AU so not used to dealing with English terminology when it comes to describing this :joy:

But yes, from your description, it would seem that the AU follows the EU rules: multiple gangs can be packed into 1 box. In the case of AU a rectangular one instead of the square one from the EU :wink:

We're not used to having multiple wall plates on a wall so not relishing the thought of having to put 3 separate wall plates for 3 dimmers onto a wall, but I can't seem to find a solution that packs 3 dimmer gangs (or even 2) into one wall plate.

Some of the in-wall dimmer modules have 2 gangs, but that doesn't help me in the sense that I don't have any physical device attached to the wall to operate the dimming level. At best I'd be able to turn it on and off and would need to go into the HE dash to set the dimming level...