One of the cool controls we loved using during our weekend staying in the Loxone Show Home in Austria was the ‘Touch Surface’.
What Is It?
This is a capacitive touch sensor that mounts up to 30mm below the surface of your kitchen worktop, table top or even behind bathroom tiles. In fact it works behind most surfaces like stone, wood, ceramic or glass (but not conductive materials). This technology is not new (check this out from 2002) but it’s great tech and works well.
Installation
This template was supplied to Parkes Interiors, our kitchen designers to make sure the Dekton worktop was drilled and etched appropriately.
We’ve used the Loxone ‘Tree” version of this sensor which has a wired 24v power supply, but there’s also an “Air” version of the unit available for retro fits which is battery powered.
In Use
Once installed it allows the surface to act like any other Loxone 5-zone Touch switch. It’s been well thought out too, so that even in busy areas like a kitchen worktop it’s almost impossible to activate it accidentally.
To make the unit live you must first touch the activation button, the five touch points of the switch are then activated for 5 seconds, and the remaining time will be displayed through the activation indicator which counts down LEDs until it times out (you can disable this activation protection if you prefer).
We have it programmed to control the light bar above the kitchen worktop as well as music and blinds in the barn. As with all other Loxone switches, a double tap will shut down the room, turning off all the lights, stopping the music, turning off the TV etc.
Of course the beauty of a Loxone smart home system is that we can change this setup in part or in total. For example if we decide we’d rather have it operate say the roof windows directly above the worktop then that’s a simple programming change.
Loxone Touch Surface
Remember to check out our Instagram to follow the project, read the rest of the Automated Home 2.0 blog posts and find the links to all the products we’ve used in our self-build.