What Controls Come With an Electric Rooflight?

An electric rooflight comes with a radio handset as standard, and most systems also offer a wall switch, a wired keypad and app control through a gateway. The handset pairs to a receiver in the unit, usually on 868MHz rather than Wi-Fi. Wired options must be specified before the wiring goes in.

That last sentence is the whole reason this page exists. Every control decision is cheap at order stage and expensive once a ceiling is plastered and a kitchen is fitted. What follows is what each control type actually does, and what we ask people to decide before we place the order.

The four control types

Radio handset

The default, and it is included with virtually every electric and solar opening unit. A small remote paired to a receiver built into the rooflight, running on a dedicated radio band, typically 868MHz. It is not Wi-Fi and it does not touch your broadband, so a router reboot or a dead internet line has no effect on it. Range through normal domestic construction is roughly 20 to 30 metres.

One handset can drive several units, either individually or as a group, so a run of three rooflights over a kitchen can open together on one button. The failure mode is the obvious one: it goes down the back of the sofa. We pair a second handset on any job with more than one opening unit and fit a wall cradle, because a handset with a home gets used.

Wall switch

A fixed plate on the wall, in either of two forms, and the difference matters.

• Hard-wired. A control cable runs from the plate to the rooflight’s control unit. The most reliable option, no batteries, and it is the one that has to be planned before plastering. Retrofitting it later means chasing a wall.
• Wireless. A battery-powered plate that sticks or screws to the wall and talks to the same receiver as the handset. It can be moved, it needs a cell every few years, and it is the sensible answer on any retrofit into a finished room.

For a kitchen extension we usually specify both a wall switch and a handset. The switch by the door gets used daily. The handset gets used when you are sitting down and it has started to rain.

Wired keypad or multi-unit controller

Where there are several opening units, or where an installation mixes rooflights with roof windows and blinds, a keypad gives you named groups, individual selection and often a percentage or timed open. On a large kitchen and garden room with five or six opening units, a handset with numbered channels becomes a memory test and a keypad does not.

Keypads are generally wired to the control unit, so this is firmly an order-stage decision.

App and gateway

A gateway bridges the rooflight’s radio protocol onto your home network and gives you app control, scheduling and integration with the common smart home platforms. What people actually use it for is timed purge ventilation in the morning, a close-everything button when they leave the house, and an alert if a unit is still open.

Two honest caveats. The gateway needs mains power and a network connection within range, which is a small extra install item and a small extra cost. And app control is a layer on top of the radio system, never a replacement for it. If a system is sold as app-only, with no handset and no switch that works when the network is down, refuse it. Our smart home control integration page covers the platforms and their limits in detail.

What to specify at order stage

We work through this list at survey rather than leaving it to the day the unit arrives:

1. Where the wall switch goes. By the door you use, at normal light switch height. Mark it on the plan so the electrician runs the cable to the right place.
2. Hard-wired or wireless. Open ceiling means hard-wired is barely any extra work. Finished room means wireless, every time.
3. How many handsets. Two on anything with more than one unit. Grouping arrangement agreed at the same time.
4. Whether a gateway is going in. If yes, it needs a socket and a network point, and it is far easier to allow for one now than to find one later.
5. Rain sensor, and whether it is heated. Heated pads are worth having within about a mile of open sea at Felixstowe, Harwich or Aldeburgh, where sea fret is fine enough that it may not bridge the sensor tracks. See adding a rain sensor to a rooflight.
6. Wind sensor. Sensible on exposed east-facing coastal roofs. It closes the unit above a set wind speed so the actuator is not loaded sideways.

Older systems and lost handsets

Radio protocols move on. A handset from a system that was current fifteen years ago may no longer be available, and on some ranges the receiver inside the unit cannot be paired to anything currently made. If a handset is lost or a receiver has died on an older rooflight, the first step is identifying the exact generation from the data plate on the top edge of the sash.

Where a compatible control is still available, this is a straightforward swap. Where the system is genuinely obsolete, the honest answer is diagnosis followed by replacement of the unit rather than a hunt for parts that no longer exist. We do not repair or reseal rooflights, and we would rather say that plainly than sell you a season. Obsolete control systems on older electric rooflights sets out how we identify what you have, and rooflight not responding to the remote covers the first checks to make.

Get the controls specified properly

Controls are a small part of the price and a large part of whether you like the rooflight. We agree them at survey, before the order, and they appear on the written quote alongside the unit itself. Read electric skylight installation for the full picture, or what happens in a power cut if that is the question on your mind.

Request a fixed quote and we will walk the control positions with you at survey.