Hue, Sonos and extra controls at your fingertips – but it surely comes at a price
The Rithum Swap is a superb wanting machine that’s simple(ish) to put in and works nicely with the likes of Philips Hue and Sonos proper out of the field, with extra integrations out there – albeit at an additional price. Up to now few months the British model have additionally expanded its capabilities and made it a extra compelling smart home controller. Nevertheless, it’s fairly a hefty outlay, albeit it is less expensive than the likes of Control4 and Crestron and supplies an identical management expertise, so smart home fans could be tempted, particularly if they’re already utilizing the Homey Professional.
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Works with Hue and Sonos -
Crisp show -
A number of set up choices -
Homey Professional expands options
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Costly -
No particular person mild management on homescreen -
Clunky menu/settings UI -
Scene-led could be irritating
Key options
- Set up: A number of energy choices, however mild swap with impartial current is finest setup.
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi.
- Integrations: Philips Hue, Sonos, Tado, Homey, Lutron, BlueOS, Fibaro, Rako, Hdanywhere.
(Picture credit score: The Ambient)
The Rithum Swap Smart Home Management Panel is actually a touchscreen management panel, designed to provide the kind of high-end expertise you’d get with the likes of Control4 or Crestron, at a a lot smaller price-tag – it’s £249 within the UK.
Designed primarily to suit the place an present dumb mild swap sits, as per the likes of Good or Sonoff’s NSPanel Professional, the thought is to offer you a number of lighting, sound and heating choices the place a easy on/off mild swap as soon as sat.
I initially posted this evaluate again in August 2023 after I had the Rithum Swap put in for just a few weeks.
Nevertheless, the fellows at Rithum – a British firm – have made just a few tweaks to the system prior to now few months and have really addressed just a few factors that I raised in my preliminary verdict.
So, learn on for my full Rithum Swap evaluate to search out out why it now boasts our coveted Really helpful badge.
Design and set up
- Ideally suited to a lightwitch with a impartial wire current
- A number of different set up choices additionally potential
Primarily, as talked about within the intro, the very best place to put in the Rithum Swap is the place you’ve at present bought a standard mild swap.
That’s as a result of the scale, form and construct is the precise design wanted to fit into an everyday UK/EU again field; UK sq. (71mm) and EU spherical (68mm) again bins to be particular.
Issues do get a tiny bit advanced relying on how your lighting circuits are wired. In older homes you’ll in all probability discover a impartial on the swap, which is nice as a result of the Rithum Swap wants a impartial to energy it; you possibly can’t simply run your common reside/swap reside mild energy via it and hope for the very best.
In newer builds, and in homes the place the electrics have been up to date, you’re going to be fortunate to discover a impartial on the swap as they’re usually discovered on the mild fittings themselves.
Or, you might have switches that management a number of lights and also you’ll discover a great deal of wires behind the plate and also you’ll be in a world of confusion.
Concern not although, as a result of Rithum has guides on all matter of sunshine swap and electrical setups and also you’re sure to search out one which works for you, albeit with a little bit of tinkering together with your present wires; there’s even choices to energy utilizing PoE or a DC adapter.
For me, the best route, was to easily wire my Swap into an everyday plug socket, utilizing an outdated cable I discovered within the storage. I might merely go away my single mild swap wired completely ‘on’ utilizing a connector block, because it’s a Hue bulb that may be powered down in quite a few different methods than a bodily swap.
This isn’t actually a standard setup in any respect, but it surely did the job, and was tremendous simple because the wall I had the Swap put in on backs onto a storage cabinet in my backyard workplace, so I wasn’t too involved with preserving it neat and tidy behind.
Forgive the dodgy paintwork across the Swap within the image, I’ve had quite a few smart switches put in within the sport I examined the Rithum through the years.
The Rithum Swap set up course of, when you’ve selected an influence choice, could be very simple; the machine itself simply pops off of that silver again plate – which will get screwed into an everyday again field – and also you simply clip it again on. It’s a 5-minute job at most.
As soon as it’s powered on, and in contrast to what you’d count on from an Android pill or a smart TV – or principally something with a show these days, you aren’t introduced with a setup display screen. The Rithum emblem comes up because it boots after which you might be simply introduced with this:
A number of random faucets later and I did discover my method to the settings display screen (it’s by way of that little notch up prime) and was capable of scan for Wi-Fi networks (2.4GHz solely) and enter my home community’s password to rise up and operating.
The subsequent factor to do is to set your location, by way of your postcode, in order you get the native time and climate data introduced in that notch.
When you’ve sorted your Wi-Fi and site out, the following factor to do is to setup your integrations…
Options
- Sonos and Hue work out of the field
- Different integrations are extra price
- System relies round scene management
The factor to get your head round with the Rithum Swap is it’s not a lightweight swap, nor an app, it’s primarily a scenes controller and depends on you having your scenes and teams already setup and streamlined in no matter integrations you propose on utilizing, whether or not that be Hue, Sonos or the rest.
It’s Sonos and Hue that work natively with the Rithum Swap and you’ll be able to add in your programs after only a few faucets via the setup menus.
Philips Hue is a little more clunky than Sonos, as a Hue Bridge is recognized as an IP tackle, fairly than simply saying ‘Hue Bridge’, and also you additionally must faucet your Bridge’s centre button to verify entry, however that’s about as advanced because it will get.
As soon as synced, you’ll see all your Hue rooms, zones and scenes out there to decide on throughout the Scenes menu.
Once I first examined the Rithum Swap in the summertime of 2023, there was no means of controlling particular person Hue lights – both a primary on/off or color management or dimming. It was restricted to scenes, rooms and zones solely.
Nevertheless, extra granular controls have been added to the combo, because of the brand new Ranges function, which is now reside.
This allows you to, utilizing the icon on the precise of the display screen, hearth up new display screen the place you possibly can select to change the on/off standing and the brightness of particular person lights inside a room.
In my workplace, the place I’ve the Rithum put in, I’ve quite a few Hue bulbs and I can now management them extra granularly. By default, it presents the room as complete, however when you faucet the little orange arrow, you’ll be introduced with the entire particular person lights (and this view appears to stay, so that you don’t must do it each time.)
Sonos management is similar to what you get with Control4 and works nicely on the entire. When it comes to scenes, initially there have been 4 pre-set scenes, of which I’d say none are all that helpful. I don’t assume I’ll ever want to regulate each single Sonos speaker I’ve bought in a single hit, from a person room in my home.
That’s partly as a result of, though it clearly is sensible to regulate scenes within the room during which the Swap is put in, you aren’t restricted to simply controlling that room. The Rithum Swap doesn’t know the place it’s put in, it simply is aware of it’s a part of your community, so it may possibly discover and management and Sonos speaker or Hue mild in your home.
A brand new replace since I initially examined the Rithum Swap although is a few new Sonos controls, together with the flexibility to play your Sonos Favourites in rooms or zones you identify, equivalent to this scene I created the place 6 Music performs on my workplace audio system:
For controlling your Sonos system you merely use the media button – the little notch that comes up on the backside of the homescreen and appears like a Hello-Fi equaliser.
When you faucet this, you bounce into a pleasant display screen whereby you possibly can scroll via all of your Sonos Favourites, create teams, ungroup audio system and the like.
(Picture credit score: The Ambient)
You possibly can select a most of 8 scenes and you’ll change the textual content and icon measurement of those within the settings menu.
You possibly can create single scenes or group scenes, with the thought being with the latter that you could mix a number of scenes collectively that simply require one faucet to provoke; assume turning on some lights to a dimmed setting and beginning your music with only one faucet.
(Picture credit score: The Ambient)
When the Swap wakes up from standby, with a fast faucet, it’s the ‘Scenes Display screen’ you might be introduced with and that actually is the final word objective of the Rithum Swap – to offer you fast entry to regulate gadgets and alter their behaviours with out having to open up separate apps.
Nevertheless, it might be good – as talked about – to have particular person mild management, for instance to create an much more bespoke controller.
The brand new Ranges choice does imply although, that this particular person mild management is just one faucet away although, however it might be good to pin a particular mild to the homescreen.
What you are able to do although, on a room stage a minimum of, is toggle lights on and off utilizing the standby gesture function. With out waking the display screen, you’ll be able to faucet and maintain the show – earlier than it wakes – to toggle the lights.
You too can use the gesture options for a double faucet; I at present have it set to renew music playback on a particular Sonos speaker from the place it left off.
For those who do need to take issues additional and add much more scenes and automations into the combo then a Homey Professional is the way in which to go.
For those who’re unaware, then the Homey Professional is a really highly effective, multi-skilled smart home hub that works with an absolute plethora of smart home gadgets and types.
Subsequently, you get tremendous detailed creating Homey automations (they name them ‘Flows’) and have these because the presets in your Rithum Swap scenes.
At practically £600 for the 2 gadgets mixed, plus £20 for the combination plugin, that’s a little bit of a wallet-bash, for positive – but it surely’s nonetheless a fraction of what you’d pay for comparable controls with the likes of Control4.
Again to what the Rithum can do natively and, at a £20 price, you can even add a Tado smart heating system to the combo too.
This works rather well, with the little thermometer icon on the left hand measurement pinging open an easy-to-use digital thermostat. You possibly can toggle between Tado rooms and zone utilizing the notch within the prime left nook.
(Picture credit score: The Ambient)
You possibly can set the heating by sliding the digital dial and you can even resume your preset Tado schedule utilizing the button within the prime proper nook.
There may be really a temperature sensor constructed into the Swap itself (on the backside) which powers the Rithum Stat function.
That is fairly a nifty means, in the event you’ve bought a lighting relay already in place together with your boiler, of including an additional smart thermostat to your home; merely pair it with a Zigbee relay from the likes of Shelly, Fibaro, Hue or Luton.
The Swap additionally provides a few neat gesture controls: maintain for a sure mild scene or double faucet to resumer music playback, that are helpful for the actions you’d use probably the most within the room the place you could have your Swap put in.
There’s a proximity sensor up prime of the Swap, which I believed would deliver it to life when it was on standby and I walked previous (or waved at it) however that wasn’t the case.
Extra plugins for the likes of Lutron, BlueOS, Fibaro, Rako and Hdanywhere are all out there; you’ll want to speak to your common pro-installer or supplier to get these up and operating.
In on a regular basis use
I’ll begin with the positives and the general expertise with the Swap, when you’ve bought your self across the scenes-only setup, is fairly good.
Audio management is nice, when you get your Sonos favourites sorted throughout the S2 app and the Tado integration is seamless.
However whereas the Rithum Swap works nicely, the general navigation and wording used for the menus and settings is a bit sophisticated.
(Picture credit score: The Ambient)
I’ve bought a Control4 system put in in my home and I discovered large comparisons between the consumer interface on the Rithum Swap and a Control4 touchscreen… and it’s not an ideal comparability; Control4 annoys the heck out of me too.
It’s simply not as apparent and consumer pleasant because it actually ought to be. I’m a large smart home nerd and I’ve spent years testing varied smart home ecosystems, apps and controllers and if it’s not apparent to me find out how to do one thing then it’s going to be close to unattainable for a ‘common’ consumer.
Touchscreen controllers and the UI they current must be tremendous intuitive, and that is simply isn’t for the time being.
The staff behind Rithum boast that there is no such thing as a extra app and no browser interface. And whereas that’s factor for streamlining the method and making the product as standalone as potential, I do really assume a extra detailed smartphone companion app would enhance the settings facet an ideal deal.
Remaining ideas
Again after I reviewed the Swap in August I stated that, finally, as a lot as I’d prefer to because it’s a swanky wanting piece of package, I couldn’t extremely advocate the Rithum Swap in its then present state.
I discussed that it nonetheless feels considerably like a piece in progress and lamented that, whereas some options work rather well, every thing felt a bit restricted, and also you’d have to faucet into one thing just like the Homey Professional to essentially make use of its scenes-first strategy.
I concluded that primarily, it was practically there.
Quick ahead six months or so and is it there now then? I’d say sure.
It’s not excellent nonetheless and it’s nonetheless too expensive for fanatic to take a punt on, as you possibly can tinker round with one thing just like the NSPanel Professional for the same expertise, at a fraction of the value.
However the enhancements with ranges, Sonos Favourites and the group scenes have elevated the Rithum Swap to a brand new stage.
However, greater than that, the dedication from the model to make these enhancements show that the Swap is a worthwhile funding and I get the sensation that the machine will go from power to power and the neighborhood expands.
I Iook ahead to testing out any new options and integrations as they drop, however for now I’m completely satisfied to bump up my unique rating and provides the Rithum Swap my advice.
How we take a look at
Once we publish our critiques, you possibly can relaxation assured that they’re the results of “dwelling with” long run checks.
Smart switches often reside inside an ecosystem, or a variety of merchandise that – supposedly – all work in concord. Subsequently, it’s unattainable to make use of a tool for per week and ship a verdict.
As a result of we’re testing smart home package all day, on a regular basis, we all know what issues and the way a specific machine compares to alternate options that you may additionally be contemplating.
Our critiques are complete, goal and truthful and, after all, we’re by no means paid on to evaluate a tool.
Learn our full information on How We Take a look at to search out out extra.
FAQS
Do you want a impartial wire for the Rithum Swap?
No, there are workarounds and tweaks in the event you don’t have a impartial wire at your mild swap.
Does the Rithum Swap have Zigbee?
No, it’s Wi-Fi solely – if you’d like one thing comparable that additionally has a Zigbee controller then take a look at the NSPanel Professional from Sonoff.
Does the Rithum Swap have Alexa or Google Assistant?
There’s at present no voice assistant integrations for the Rithum Swap.
Full product identify: Specs
Kind | Kind and colours | |
UK RRP | £249 | |
US RRP | N/A | |
Measurement | 86mm x 86mm | |
Again field depth | 35mm | |
Wi-Fi | 2.4GHz 802.11bgn | |
Integrations | Philips Hue, Sonos, Tado, Homey, Lutron, BlueOS, Fibaro, Rako, Hdanywhere. | |
Show | 480 x 480 | |
Working System | Proprietary |