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Smart switch alexa is does it count
Former Community Member
So looking through regs items need to be switched to be controlled. So does an Alexa for type switch count. If you run a normal switch then add Alexa bulb say at some point someone will turn off the switch and the item will over time deprogramme. Therefore you could short back of switch giving constant power and solving problem but is that within the regs?
I remember having an argument with my former foreman back in the mid 80s about this subject, regarding an old school MEM excel isolator, 2p, 20 amp. Single phase application. Do we isolate the neutral (bearing in mind 16th ed). Our final compromise was to put the phase./line nearest to the switch actuator, so if someone slammed the isolator off really hard and broke the switch bar (yeah I know, unlikely)... the live one would be the one to break.
These days, if it comes right down to it,. make the isolator double pole and lockable, and rely on the following people to do proper testing.
If a light is switched by a pull cord switch, two-way switched or has a switched pendant how does anyone know the light is turned off they go to change a bulb?
Unless you are very ham fisted and / or the lamp breaks, there is normally no need to touch potentially live metal parts while 'changing the bulb', and unless you are very slow, there is plenty of time to get it fully clicked home between it lighting in your hand and becoming too hot to hold. It is of course not the official and correct answer, but I'm sure this is what happens in reality outside the rarefied atmosphere of examination rooms and standardisation meetings.
Broken lamps and quartz halogen linear lamps I will agree need a bit more thought.
There are also some nasty open face LED lamps, where the illumination surface is actually at a near live potential, and I have heard of folk being bitten by them, the fact they are not CE compliant does not magically make them disappear from the internet market and boot sales. Perhaps one should consider what could happen if one is fitted.
I occasionally get phone calls to call and extract base of a bulb, as the customers refer to them, with the electricians go to piece of equipment the long nosed pliers. It’s not unusual for old GLS lamps to fall to pieces when someone try’s to remove it and replacing some GU10 lamps requires brute force.
