News · Industry recognition
Good lighting control shouldn't be a luxury. Australia's lighting industry just agreed.
PIXIE has been named winner of Best Lighting Control System at the 2026 Lighting Industry Excellence Awards, run by Lighting Council Australia.
For most of the last thirty years, proper lighting control was something you either paid a great deal for or went without. Cabled systems delivered beautiful results, but they arrived with specialist cable, a specialist programmer and a price that ruled out the overwhelming majority of Australian homes. PIXIE was built to close that gap, and this award recognises the result.
Best Lighting Control System, 2026.
The Lighting Industry Excellence Awards are run by Lighting Council Australia, the national body for the lighting industry, and judged by people who spend their working lives specifying, installing and assessing lighting. The Best Lighting Control System category judges the lighting control itself: how well a system dims, switches, schedules and sets scenes, how reliably it does so, and how readily it can be delivered in the real world rather than in a brochure.
PIXIE was recognised for a control system that an everyday electrician installs using standard wiring practices, sets up from an app in minutes, and delivers to homes and small venues that were never going to be candidates for a cabled control system. That is the whole argument in one sentence, and it is why the award matters more to us than a line on a website.
What was judged
The lighting control itself, and how far it has come. Dimming quality across every major protocol, switching, scheduling and scene control across a whole home or site, reliability in daily use, and how practically it can be delivered at scale in Australian homes and small venues.
Why it matters here
Australian homes are wired a particular way and built by electricians who are time poor and practical. PIXIE was designed around that reality rather than adapted to it afterwards.
Ten years of development, one device at a time.
Judging a control system means judging what it can actually do, and the honest answer is that PIXIE can do a great deal more today than it could at launch. The mesh is in its third generation of hardware, and the range has grown from a handful of mechs into a system that covers most of what a home needs controlled.
At launch
A product
- A dimmer and a switch, talking over Bluetooth mesh.
- Lighting only. Fans, blinds and climate came later.
- A product you bought, not a system you designed.
Today
A system
- Third generation mechs, in any combination from one gang to six.
- Local control from the wall and the app, still with no hub and no subscription.
- Every major dimming protocol: trailing edge, DALI2, 0-10V and PWM for LED strip.
- Sensors, timers, relay, blind, curtain and garage controllers, smart outlets and LED strip control.
- Ceiling fans, ducted air conditioning and zone control through CLIMATIQ.
- Touch panels, remotes, multiway switches, rotary controls and a dedicated signal booster.
- The Gateway adds voice and away from home control, still with no subscription.
None of that arrived in one release. It is ten years of adding the next thing Australian homes and electricians asked for, on a platform that was designed to be added to.
Three tiers of lighting control, and a missing middle.
Lighting control in Australia has long come in two flavours, and neither of them served the middle of the market. Understanding those two is the fastest way to understand what PIXIE is for.
Cabled legacy systems
Cabled, complex and costly. The outcomes are excellent, but they are reserved for the few who can carry the cable, the programmer and the price.
PIXIE, the middle
A complete system rather than a collection of gadgets, installed by the electrician you already use, built for Australian homes and the way we build and wire here.
Big box retail
Cheap, built to a price point and sold product by product. People end up with bits in a box rather than a system in a home, and the bits rarely work as one.
For most people, most of the time, PIXIE delivers the outcome of a cabled control system for a fraction of what one costs to buy and install.
Democratised means you can actually have it.
An award is worth something to you only if it changes what you can put in your own house. Here is what a mid-market control system looks like once the cable, the programmer and the price are taken out of the equation.
One system, not five apps
- Lights, fans, blinds, heating and cooling, all on the same control.
- Scenes for morning, dinner, movie night and bedtime, set once.
- Everything still works from the switch on the wall, so the family is never locked out by a flat phone.
Your own electrician fits it
- No specialist, no programmer, no separate trade to book in.
- Standard wiring, so it suits a renovation as readily as a new build.
- Changes later are a few minutes in the app, not a service call.
No hub, no cloud, no subscription
- Wall and app control run locally in your home, with no internet needed.
- Nothing stops working when the broadband drops out.
- Add the PIXIE Gateway when you want voice control and access from away.
Designed for you, free
- Send us your plans and we design the system with you at no cost.
- You see what each room gets before you spend anything.
- Start with one room and grow, without replacing what you already paid for.
An award is useful only if it changes what you can have.
If you are renovating, building, or simply tired of walking into a dark house, the practical version of this award is that the system behind it is available through the electrical wholesalers your electrician already buys from, installed by a PIXIE Certified Installer, and designed for you at no charge before anybody picks up a tool.
PIXIE runs on Bluetooth mesh, so wall control and app control work locally in the home without a hub, a cloud account or an internet connection. Add the PIXIE Gateway and you also get voice control through Google, Alexa or Siri along with control when you are away from home. It is a system you can start small with and grow, one room at a time, without replacing what you have already paid for.
The point of all this
Lighting control that was cabled, complex and costly, made accessible for Australian homes.
From the few to the many. That is what democratised means to us, and it is why this award, judged by our own industry, is the one we most wanted to win.
See what award winning lighting control looks like in your home.
Send us your plans and we will design your smart home with you, free of charge, then put you in touch with a certified installer near you.