Guide · Electric and Opening Rooflights
Remote controls, wall switches and smart home links
Every motorised rooflight has the same three components at the top of it: something that issues a command, something that receives it, and something that drives the motor. What changes between installations is only the first of those. A handset, a switch on the wall, a rule inside a controller, an app on a phone or a voice in the kitchen all arrive at the same place by different routes.
This page is about those routes. What they need from the building, what they cost in reliability, which combinations work well together, and what happens when one of them stops. The mechanism they all end up driving is covered on the electric and opening rooflights hub, and the actuator itself has its own page.
The three ways a command reaches the motor
The first is a hard wired switch, which either sends a low voltage signal to a controller or, on the simplest systems, switches the supply polarity to the motor directly. Nothing to pair, nothing to fail, no batteries.
The second is radio, where a battery powered transmitter sends a short coded burst to a receiver at the unit. That covers handsets, wireless wall plates and window sensors. The third is a network link, where a hub sits between the radio side and the household wireless network so that a phone, a tablet or a voice assistant can issue the same command from anywhere. Most houses end up with two of the three, and the useful combination is a wired or wireless switch for daily use and something else for everything unusual.
Radio frequencies, and the one rooflights use
The rooflight brands sold in the United Kingdom mostly work in the 868 megahertz licence exempt band, which is the European short range device allocation. It is a good choice for this job. Lower frequency signals pass through masonry and plasterboard more readily than the 2.4 gigahertz band that carries home wireless networking, so a handset in a downstairs room reaches a receiver in a loft without difficulty.
It also matters that the band is quiet. Household wireless, microwaves and most consumer electronics live at 2.4 gigahertz and above, which is congested. At 868 the only other traffic is likely to be an alarm sensor or a heating control, so a rooflight command gets through on the first attempt with nothing else shouting over it.
Pairing, and what the receiver actually stores
Pairing writes the transmitter’s unique identifier into the receiver’s memory, along with a rolling code seed. From then on the receiver accepts commands carrying that identifier and ignores everything else, and the rolling code changes with each press so that a recorded transmission cannot be replayed by someone standing outside.
The procedure is generally the same across brands: put the receiver into learning mode, usually by holding a small button at the unit or interrupting the supply in a defined pattern, then press a button on the handset. The memory holds a limited number of transmitters, often fifteen or so, and the practical consequence is worth noting: on a unit that is already fitted and high up, pairing means getting to the receiver. Doing it at installation while the access is already there saves a lot of trouble.
Record which handset is paired to which unit at handover, because six identical white remotes in a drawer is a puzzle nobody enjoys.
Handsets, from one channel to fifteen
A single channel handset does one unit. It is small, cheap to replace and it does not require anybody to remember anything, which in a spare bedroom with one roof window is exactly right.
Multi channel handsets carry a selector and drive a list of units and blinds independently, or as a group. They suit an open plan kitchen with three rooflights and two integrated blinds, where walking to a wall plate for each one would be tedious. The trade is memory: a fifteen channel handset needs the channels labelling and needs somebody to know which is which. In practice households settle on one handset that lives in a drawer for the whole system and a wall switch for the unit they use every day.
Wall switches that are wired, and the ones that are not
A wired switch is the most reliable thing in the system. It has no battery, no pairing and no radio path, and it works in the dark on the day the household wireless network has stopped. Where a cable can be run at first fix, one wired switch per unit is worth having even if everything else is done by phone.
A wireless wall plate is a handset in a switch shape, usually with an adhesive or screw fixed backplate and a coin cell lasting several years. Nothing is chased into the wall, and it can move if the furniture layout changes. It suits a retrofit into a finished room, and it suits a solid wall Victorian terrace where a chase means dust through the whole house.
Where a switch belongs on the plan
Beside the door of the room, at the same height as the lighting switches, is right far more often than not. The logic is simple: the rooflight gets operated when somebody enters or leaves the room, so it belongs where their hand already goes.
Two positions cause regret. Behind a door that is normally open, which happens when the switch is added to a drawing late and nobody checks the door swing. And on the wall the kitchen units eventually occupy, which is a common outcome when the electrical layout is fixed before the kitchen design is. On an extension with bifolds across most of one wall, the honest answer is often that there is only one piece of full height wall available, and it wants agreeing before the plasterboard goes on.
Rocker, momentary and hold to run
Three switch behaviours exist and they feel very different to use. A latching rocker sends open or close and the unit runs the full stroke unattended. A momentary switch runs only while pressed, so the pane stops wherever the finger leaves the button, which is how an intermediate ventilation position gets set by hand.
The third is a hybrid used by most modern controllers: a short press runs the full stroke, a long press runs while held. That covers both habits without asking the household to learn anything. Where a system offers only latching operation, a favourite intermediate position is usually still available from the handset as a stored setting rather than by timing the button.
Bridges, hubs and the box that speaks two languages
A rooflight receiver at 868 megahertz cannot talk to a home network at 2.4 gigahertz, so linking the two needs a translator. That is the hub: a small mains powered box, connected to the router by cable or wireless, holding the same paired identities as any handset and exposing them to the network as controllable devices.
It has to live somewhere with mains power and within radio reach of every unit, which in a three storey house may mean the first floor landing rather than the hall cupboard next to the router. VELUX, Somfy and the other major systems each have their own hub, and they are not interchangeable. Mixing a Fakro unit and a VELUX unit in one house generally means two hubs, or accepting that they are controlled separately.
Getting a rooflight into a house that already runs on an app
Most households arriving at this already have something: heating on an app, lights on an app, a speaker that answers. The question is whether the rooflight can join it, and the answer depends on whether the manufacturer’s hub exposes an integration to the platform in question.
The major rooflight control systems publish integrations for the mainstream home platforms, and there are open source bridges for the more technical households. What matters at specification stage is asking the question before ordering rather than after, because the control system is chosen with the unit and changing it later means changing receivers. Where a household has no interest in any of this, a handset and a wall switch is a complete and durable answer that will still be working in fifteen years.
Voice control, and what it is genuinely good for
Voice is excellent for one thing: operating something while your hands are full. In a kitchen, at a hob, with a pan in each hand and the room filling with steam, saying the words is meaningfully better than crossing to a switch.
It is poor at everything requiring precision. Asking for a rooflight to open halfway rarely works as well as pressing a button, and voice systems depend on an internet connection, so a broadband outage takes them with it. Treat it as a convenience layered on top of a switch rather than as the way the unit is operated, and it earns its place without becoming a dependency.
Scenes, groups and units that move together
Where several rooflights serve one space, controlling them individually gets old quickly. Grouping puts them on one channel so a single press moves all of them, and a scene goes further by combining different devices into one command: rooflights open, blinds to a set position, and on some systems the ventilation flaps as well.
The genuinely useful scenes in a domestic house are few. A summer evening scene that opens the high units and leaves the low ones alone. A night scene that closes everything and drops the blackout blinds in the bedrooms. An away scene that closes everything and turns off the automatic reopening. Three well chosen scenes get used. Twelve get forgotten within a month.
Latency, and the pause before anything moves
A wired switch acts instantly. A handset takes perhaps a tenth of a second, which reads as instant. A command through a hub on the local network takes a few tenths. A command routed through a manufacturer’s servers, which is what a voice assistant or an app used from outside the house is doing, takes one to three seconds and occasionally longer.
None of that is a problem in itself. It becomes one when somebody presses again because nothing appeared to happen, and the second command arrives as the first is executing. Systems handle this differently. The reliable habit is to wait, since the unit takes half a minute to travel anyway and the pause before it starts is a small part of the whole.
Losing a handset, and what happens next
Nothing dramatic. The receiver still holds the pairing, so a replacement handset of the same model is paired in and works. On systems with a hub, the app can usually complete the pairing without anyone going near the unit, which is a real advantage on a high level rooflight.
Where there is neither a hub nor a wall switch, pairing a new handset means physically reaching the receiver at the unit. That is the argument for putting at least one wired switch on any rooflight that is genuinely out of reach, a point developed on rooflights out of reach. Clearing a lost handset from the receiver’s memory is also worth doing, and the procedure is in the unit’s instructions.
What each control route needs from the building
The choice is usually settled by the fabric rather than by preference, and this is what each option asks for.
| Control route | Needs | Fails when | Suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wired wall switch | A cable at first fix | Nothing ordinary | New build, extensions, loft conversions |
| Handset | A pairing and a battery | It is lost or flat | Every installation, as a second route |
| Wireless wall plate | A flat surface and radio reach | Coin cell dies, every few years | Retrofit into finished rooms |
| Hub and app | Mains, router, radio reach | Network or power is down | Households already running on apps |
| Voice | A hub and an internet connection | Broadband outage | Kitchens, hands full |
Signal through Essex building fabric
Radio at 868 megahertz passes through plasterboard, timber, insulation and a single skin of brick with very little loss. It struggles with two things, and both are common in this county.
The first is foil. Foil faced insulation board, foil backed plasterboard and the aluminium foil on some breather membranes act as a partial screen, and a loft conversion lined throughout in foil board can leave a receiver in a radio box. The second is solid masonry in quantity, which is the Victorian terraces of Chelmsford, Colchester and Maldon, where a nine inch solid wall plus a chimney breast between transmitter and receiver is a genuine obstacle. Neither is a dead end. A repeater, a relocated hub, or a wired switch at the unit answers it, and knowing which of the three is needed is a question the survey settles by testing rather than by assuming.
Setting the system up at handover
Commissioning is where a well specified system becomes a system somebody can actually use. Limits are set so the pane stops where it should. Intermediate positions are stored. Groups and scenes are built, named in plain words rather than in model numbers, and demonstrated to whoever will be using them.
Then the paperwork: which handset drives what, where the receiver and any hub are, what the pairing procedure is, and where the manual override sits on each unit. On a house with several rooflights that sheet is worth more in five years than any of the settings, because the settings can be rebuilt and the knowledge of where everything lives cannot.
Keep reading
More on electric and opening rooflights
Rain sensors and what they actually do
Read the guide →Wiring an electric rooflight at first fix
Read the guide →Solar powered rooflights without a mains run
Read the guide →Electric blinds fitted inside the rooflight
Read the guide →Opening rooflights for the stack effect
Read the guide →
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