The Light Emitting Diode (LED) has caused a profound change within the lighting industry. This is due in part to the LED’s key properties of being digitally controllable, physically small, highly energy efficient, cheap to manufacture, and simple to maintain due to its long lifespan. LED-based lighting systems can easily consist of hundreds of separate light sources, with each source having many individually controllable parameters including colour, intensity, and saturation. This new functionality and flexibility comes at a potential cost of increased complexity in terms of control and understanding.

The Light Switch allows controlling an advanced multi source lighting system in the bathroom. Small strategically-located touch screens control basic functions for groups of lights (e.g., switching on/off and changing light intensity) using familiar interactions (i.e., press and press-and-drag). Changing the colour temperature of white light, which had been previously found difficult to grasp, can now be achieved through variations between a sunny or a cloudy sky (i.e., warm and cold colour temperature). Lighting atmospheres for relaxation are created by selecting a colour, positioning it on an abstract map of the bathroom, and changing its intensity, all in one seamless action.