Ever been annoyed by the placement of light switches in your house? Is there never one around when you need it? The Avi-on Switch is a new light switch (with an associated iPhone app) that you can literally just stick onto your wall like a Post-It Note, no wiring required.
Here’s how it works. The Avi-on Switch uses adhesive to stick on your walls, just like a 3M wall hook. Once you stick it on the wall, it can be programmed to control either an adapter that sits between a lamp and a power outlet, or a Bluetooth-enabled light bulb so permanent lighting fixtures in your home can also be easily controlled. In addition, the Avi-on uses a touch-sensitive slider instead of a regular switch, which means it can operate as a dimmer.
You can also control the Avi-on using any iOS device that supports Bluetooth 4.0 LE: the iPhone 4s or newer, or the iPad 3 and later.
According to Avi-on’s creators, there’s no reason to worry about having to constantly change the switch’s batteries: Each Avi-on ships with batteries that last for a few years. I’d imagine the batteries are standard watch batteries, which would mean they’d be user-replaceable as well.
Sounds great, but there’s only one catch. The Avi-on isn’t a real product yet. Rather, it’s seeking crowdfunding in a rather unorthodox way: Instead of going through Kickstarter, a website has been set up that allows preorders in such a way that it looks like Kickstarter, but isn’t. That seems a little dicey to me, but if you’re willing to support Avi-on, you can preorder a starter kit for as little as $59.
