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Switchless, a new startup that will soon launch a Kickstarter campaign, is bringing its own take on smart switches to the market. There's a lot to unpack in the company announcement regarding the switch, but first and foremost is that they'll offer Matter over Thread connectivity, which means it should work with all four platforms - including Apple HomeKit - although some of the promo material which strangely doesn't show the Alexa logo even though Amazon is mentioned elsewhere. As you can see in the picture above, the switch also includes a sort of nightlight with fourteen LEDs with a brightness of up to 120 lumens, so you can see the switch better in the dark, but if you're worried about using something like that in a bedroom, this lamp can be turned on or off and set to one of 255 brightness levels. Another notable feature is that this is a capacitive touch switch, so it has no toggle or toggle mechanism, relying solely on touch. This provides the ability to perform a long press action to set the nightlight to a user-configured brightness. The company claims the touch controls also work through gloves – perfect for when you're coming back from a cold December walk. Perhaps most interesting – if Matter, Thread, a night light and touch controls aren't enough – is that you can buy cover plates with smart sensors, giving you six different options to choose from;
Temperature
Humidity
Movement
Sound
CO² & VOCs
The last three are labeled as 'coming soon', so I suspect the first two will come together in one smart faceplate. These faceplates are connected to the switch via a USB-C port. We've already seen a similar concept with smart sockets through a company called Intecular – also on Kickstarter. Unfortunately, for some this will require a neutral wire, but the Kickstarter page does state that the switch can be used in a three-way configuration. Furthermore, the same page teases that a dimmer version of the switch will be released soon, which brings us to the nature of some Kickstarter products; Some don't make it to market, and there's little recourse for lenders getting their money back. In some cases, products are released but lack the core compatibility offered during the promotional phases. This was the case with a company selling a multi-sensor and an air purifier, both of which were advertised as HomeKit compatible, but all mentions of them were removed when the products hit the market. With all that in mind, you can check out the Kickstarter page HERE, although we want to make it clear that the provision of this link and article does not implicitly endorse or guarantee the claims made about this product.

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