Inside CI Tech Talk - News, Reviews and Interviews
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Inside CI Tech Talk - News, Reviews and Interviews
LIVE @ ISE 2026 - How Niko And Motiv Turn Lighting, Climate, And EVs Into One Simple System
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A switch brand that shaped generations just showed how the smart home is finally growing up. We sat down at ISE to unpack how Niko’s century of reliability evolved into Niko Home Control, a platform that makes lighting, climate, shades, audio, EV charging, solar, and battery storage work together without drama. The big reveal: Motif, a new brand and design layer that turns energy math into simple choices you actually care about.
We walk through the system architecture—wired and Zigbee, backwards compatible since 2011—and the partnerships that matter, from Daikin and Mitsubishi for HVAC to Sonos for audio. Then we get practical about energy management. Instead of asking you to think in amps and kilowatts, the interface speaks your goals: “I want 200 miles by tomorrow” or “hold 19 degrees today.” Behind the scenes, the controller balances solar inputs, peak limits, EV charging, and battery storage so the fuse stays safe and comfort stays high. It is electrification without the headache, and it’s designed for how people actually live.
Motiv’s Sense3 keypad packs nine actions into a clean three-button face, with radar presence detection, dynamic labels, and swipeable pages. The touchscreen is fast, visual, and built for intuition: quick-launch scenes, EV targets in miles or kilometres, and a clear flow of where your energy goes and what changed over the week. For installers and integrators, the story is just as strong. Open APIs and Control4 compatibility keep AV and home control aligned, while deep training and certification ensure projects feel premium from day one. In the UK, Moss Technical offers hands-on, CEU-accredited courses and real support when deadlines bite.
If you want a home that balances comfort and kilowatts without forcing you to become an engineer, this conversation is your blueprint. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s planning a renovation, and leave a review telling us which feature—EV targets, radar keypads, or energy dashboards—you’d try first.
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Record-Breaking ISE And Niko Origins
SPEAKER_02We're back at uh ISE 2026 day three. We're here with uh Guy from uh Nico. How's the show going for you so far?
SPEAKER_00Well, thanks, Simon. How the show is going? It's it's going incredible. Um record-breaking show for us. We had more visitors on day one than we had last year on the entire week. Um, mainly because of uh the launch from Motive, the new brand from uh from Nico, but I will talk about that later.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's fantastic. Can you tell us a little bit more about the history of Nico and its background? It's a hundred years, I believe, that uh well, 125 years old.
SPEAKER_00I was still born when it was launched. Um, Nico is a Belgian family company, it's uh still family-owned. Nice, and they started with switches and sockets, um, having more than 65-70% market share in the Belgian houses. So almost every house has got Nickel. My grandmother, of 92 years old, still owns the back lead switches from 60, 70 years ago.
SPEAKER_02Well, nice backstory.
From Switches To Niko Home Control
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so Nico is really coming out of that switches and sockets manufacturer. Then you ask yourself, what are you doing at ISE? Well, simply because 25 years ago, 1997 to be exact, we started with Nickel Bus. It was the first lighting control system programmed with uh with a screwdriver really to do some smart cabling towards the installers.
SPEAKER_02So that's the bus network.
SPEAKER_00That was really a bus network, um, end of the 90s. And in 2011, that was evolved to Nickel Home Control, uh, which was launched at ISE in Amsterdam at that time, uh, which still exists today. So today, all the infrastructure that you see from nickel is based on the nickel home control system, RD backwards compatible since 2011 and still active today.
SPEAKER_02Wow, so it's a really good heritage and stuff. So so for people who don't know exactly what you do, it's got you've got the switches, you've got the home automation side of things, and that would just run.
Core System: Wired, Zigbee, Integrations
SPEAKER_00Well, everything starts with the heart of the system. Yes. Um, so we have a central processor unit, a controller, um, both wired and wireless. So the entire story I will explain you now, we have it both wired and we have it on Zigbee. Yep, nice. And then, of course, since we are a lighting manufacturer or a switch manufacturer, the main core started with lighting control, but it evolved towards heating-cooling integration. So we have many partnerships with Daiken, Mitshibishi, Toshiba, um, under API level that we directly integrate with that heating cooling system in our system. Curtain control, shade control, and we do some basic music integration with uh brands like Solnos and uh and Booze, which can all be brought into that ecosystem of uh of Nico home control.
SPEAKER_02So it's a nice complete solution for the whole house kind of thing. So it does do blind control as well. So uh yeah, it does do blind control as well.
SPEAKER_00We have uh um direct actuators to uh to integrate to them. And well, to give you some background about Nico home control, because because maybe in the United Kingdom it's not very well known yet. Um, but we deliver more than 9,000 systems per year. We have an installed base over 70,000 systems.
SPEAKER_02Wow, that's pretty that's pretty impressive.
SPEAKER_00Mainly, mainly Belgium, Netherlands, France, of course, Scandinavia, so Denmark, um, Austria, Germany, that area. We are we are kind of a big player here.
Energy Management And EV Charging
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I think lighting control plays an important part, especially nowadays, it's like mental health and well-being and that kind of thing. So obviously, what you guys have been doing for 125 years, yeah, people are just catching up from uh to doing the lighting control and having that that uh that's correct.
SPEAKER_00And you know that that that original DNA from 1997, where we made a system for the electrical installer with a screwdriver, it's still in there. It's very easy to program. We really sell to these electrical installers who need more advanced features, who need more complexity, who are confronted with more complexity in the building. Um, but they are not the top-end programmers. They want an easy software that they can configure with the plan of the house where they really can visually configure their house. Um, and by doing that complete solution, uh, we moved one step further, and this this really accelerated our business. It's a big chapter of the energy management, yeah. Which in in Europe becomes very important. So, what we have now in the system, we started, of course, with solar integration. If you have solar production in your house, how do we cope with that? Um, then we start to do peak saving to protect the fuse in your house by having more electrical consumers. For example, uh EV, electrical cars, a big consumer in a residential area uh these days, which really penetrated three, four years ago. Um, so what can we do? We can easily implement in the system that the solar production is guided towards the cars, that end users, we can show it on the touch screen later, they can really control that. They can ask for 200 miles by tomorrow, and they don't have to think, oh, I need 44 kilowatt by tomorrow, but I only have six kilowatt uh production from the solar, and I have a peak from 20 amp on my fuse. All this complexity is made simple into that system.
SPEAKER_02Fantastic.
Comfort Versus Capacity: Smart Balancing
SPEAKER_00And then completely record-breaking or or really new this year was also the complementary integration of battery storage. So now we own the full energy system into the house just by a simple push of the button. That's what we basically need.
SPEAKER_02And that's it, simple as that. And obviously, more and more EVs are coming more readily available, and uh the cost of those are coming down a bit as well.
SPEAKER_00But to be able to charge those, well, it's it's EVs, but it's also the electrification, uh, like in Europe, and it's coming also to the UK, the obliged transition from gas heating systems towards electricity and things like that. So it becomes complex at a certain moment. And you really have the issue that people have to think, will I cool my house or will I charge my car? Because the fuse is limited, and you only have four, I have 14 kilowatt maximum consumption at home, and then the fuse goes down. So you really need to balance.
SPEAKER_02In the UK, so you need to manage these phases the right phases, what's coming into your house.
SPEAKER_00And honestly, my partner or people, they don't care. They don't want to think about oh, but how is the consumption doing and uh what should I activate now? No, they just want comfort. They say I want 19 degrees and it's a sunny summer day, so my temperature has higher priority than my car, or they switch it around. I need my car by Monday to go to work, so I want 200 miles by Monday, and the temperature might fluctuate. And then we do this full balancing between all these energy streams and make sure that we reach the comfort. So, one last thing I need to say about energy management it's not only about saving euros. You can save energy, but for many people it's building intuition, it's comfort. Just make sure it works. Yeah, make sure that I get my comfort level without thinking about the complexity of an electrical installation in the in a high.
Introducing Motif: The New Brand
SPEAKER_02You don't want it too complex and you don't want to sort of uh confuse people, but well, the the flick of the switch, you're ready to go. So, Guy, this year's RC 226, you've also got some uh some news uh to tell us.
SPEAKER_00Well, yes, you hear, of course, the passion that we have about uh NICO home control. Now, all these functionalities I talked about, uh going from uh switches and socket manufacturer up to lighting control, but today evolving to a company with 80 RD engineers from which 50 are software, having AI, having energy management, all in there. We are starting to reach our limit. And we strongly believe that we can still push more to that uh that more than I see. More than IT. Yeah, we can still push more into Nico home control. So that's why we decided to launch a new brand, Motif, where we really bring all together uh we have we can show the logo there. So this is where we bring this is Motif. It's basically a new brand from Nico where we are bringing that home technology really into one brand. And what's now important at uh ISZ, it's start of sales. So we're here launching the first products, which are mainly new interfaces, uh new touch screens, which I can show you later. But of course, uh Simon, we have much more ambition with Motive than only uh delivering interfaces.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because obviously Nico's got that great heritage, you say 125 years, and now we're moving on to Motive. It's uh it's a it's a nice transition to do that.
Motif Sense3 Keypad And Touchscreen
SPEAKER_00So let's check out the products then. Yeah, let's check out the more the new screens. Okay. So, yeah, Simon, what you see here it's um it's the Nico Rocker and Toggle range, which we now embedded fully in Nico home control. So it's bus connected, you have multiple scenes that you can activate with temperature, humidity sensors. So, again, it's complementary to the Nico home control system. But I told you I'm going to show you the new motive products, so let's have a look. Because what did we learn um as a manufacturer lately? You have all the keypads, you have the functionality that you need to control the houses, but giving feedback to the user, what is he controlling, making your house intuitive? People change their scenes, that's not it's not static anymore. We found out that we need to launch new products. So, what you have here, for example, it's our Motif Sense3 keypad. Wow. Sense sense because it has radar technology, it feels you coming, it sends you coming. The moment you approach the keypad, the light will go on already. Um, it has a range up to six meters with uh with radar technology.
SPEAKER_02So no need to press buttons anymore.
SPEAKER_00Well, you have a first C which is activated, and then if you come to the keypad, you can zoom in later. But you will see on the top you have LED feedback with all the scenes.
SPEAKER_02Right. So that's LED inside there telling you what what it is, right? Yeah, look at that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so you can make a dynamic engraving towards the customer, and very interesting, you can also swipe and go to a second layer, up to three pages. So with a three-button keypad, you can go up to nine scenes. And then, of course, we can really empower the strength of Nico home control by having lighting control. You swipe, you can control your sonos, or you can do your energy management and really start, stop charging your car, change your battery storage, and and so on.
Openness And Control4 Compatibility
SPEAKER_02So there's nine scenes that you can store on on here. For instance, if I if I just do that, that could turn some lights on, lower the blinds, yes, and then put some music on Sonoth. For example, yeah, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_00So, new keypad looks very aesthetic. I like that. Um with today's 3D printing technology, kind of easy to install, multiple brackets, all different scenarios are are there. And then complementary to that, our new touchscreen. We have it already in the standard nickel home control version, but with Motif, we launch it also with some fast buttons that you can program yourself, link them to a certain scene. And here you see the intuitive design where people can, of course, control their full house, do some scenes. But like I told you, EV charging, very simple. I want 300 kilometers by tomorrow, 330, and not talking in kilowatts. It needs to be very intuitive. Identically the same for energy management. Where is my energy going? What's my flow? What happened over the last week? Did I inject? Did I earn some money? Did I have to do that?
SPEAKER_02It's also very responsive. It seems very responsive.
UK Distribution And Hands-On Training
SPEAKER_00That's what we need. And basically, it's all about I mentioned it multiple times, we call it building intuition, making that technology accessible for everybody in the house that they can quickly see from okay, what am I to doing? What's my consumption? Oh, it's mainly a washing machine, it has been a car, it has been another device. So this is basically all we do about the brand. And last thing I want to say to you we are a technology company, we have Nico home control, we know what we are strong in, electrical infrastructure, but we know where our limits are.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00So everything you see here, we're also bringing to, you see it a little bit further, to players like, for example, control four and other ones. So everything you see here can also be controlled from a control four system with exactly the same API.
SPEAKER_02So it's easily adaptable to other manufacturers and stuff like that. So integrators and end users, what's the best uh way to get hold of you guys or to see see these products?
SPEAKER_00Well, we're technology, guys. If we sell something like this, we want to be sure it's being installed. The full quality feeling of a system depends on the installer. That's basically the thing we have as a manufacturer. To do that, we really um put the necessary importance in certification and training. We have our big training center in Belgium, huge facilities, big university. We train more than 3,000 installers per year. Every day we have people in the house.
SPEAKER_02Fly over to there, get the training.
SPEAKER_00If you talk about your home markets like United Kingdom, we have a partner there, Moss Technology, already on board for a few years. They are credited, they know how to give training, they have their local facility. So I suppose I give the hand or the word to Andy Moss to explain about his uh training facilities.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, fantastic. Excellent. Well, thanks for watching your time and enjoy the rest of the show. See you. Thanks very much. We're now with uh Andy from uh Moss Technical. Andy, uh we're here at IC 2026. Yeah. On the NICO stand. Yes. You are the distributor of NICO for the UK. For the UK. Can you tell us a bit more about your role and how you work with uh with the NICO?
Support, Use Cases, And Getting Started
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so we we became the UK distributor in the new in the UK in 2011. Uh we provide tech support and training. Um the training in the UK is CD accredited, so you get CEU points towards your CDA certification. Very important. Very important, yeah. So we offer a three-day training course in our offices, our new showroom in South Wales. Oh, it's based in South Wales, okay. It's based in South Wales, but we can also train in Swindon. We can also train in Cedia uh in Cambridges here as well. So and um we also have a portable training set, so if we need to, we can travel.
SPEAKER_02Is that in is that in person, always in person? Always in person.
SPEAKER_01Uh, we we so your hands-on really very hands-on, small numbers. Um, generally speaking, two two company, two trainees at a time, and that's because we can give one-on-one, one-on-two training. Uh, we we understand the the importance of training because if an if an installer is trained and supported properly, then they they they have confidence in the brand moving forwards, and that's the most important thing. You know, tech support thereafter. Um, I've installed in the past, I'm an electrician by trade originally.
SPEAKER_02So you know what it's like.
SPEAKER_01I know what it's like when a client's breathing down your neck and and five past five, they need help, they can pick the phone up to us. So our tech support lines aren't uh aren't strictly nine till five, uh, you know, uh, so we we understand the the importance of that. I'm not surprised.
SPEAKER_02So I mean what we've just seen in the previous video, obviously the control that Nico can provide is is almost limitless.
SPEAKER_01But it is it is absolutely. But I always say that not to overcomplicate things, um, Nico can do an uh uh an almost infinite amount of things, but um it needs to be adaptable and intuitive for the client. You know, that everybody's client's needs are different, and and um so it's about understanding what the client wants. You know, the infrastructure is the same, regardless of um of really, you know, the cabling infrastructure, regardless of the client's needs at the end. Um, but somebody who's got who's got assisted living needs, as against a young family, very, very different functionality in that home, and it's important to get that right. Now, Nico is uh as Guy uh previously mentioned, it's designed as the electrical infrastructure with energy management, but there's loads and loads of partner brands and possibilities, and especially with the control four integration, that really opens it up to a to a full A V solution. Um, but it's designed as the electrical infrastructure, primarily lighting, heating, shading, and motor control. Yeah, I mean the infrastructure sounded amazing.
SPEAKER_02So uh the fact you can do it with control four now is uh is easy. So, what's the best way for uh integrators to get in in contact with you and to start this process of doing the training?
SPEAKER_01So they can contact us via our website, homecontrol.uk.com. Uh they can call our office as well. Um, you know, the numbers on the website um as well. Um, you know, and and they'll have a direct contact with us, you know, they can call me personally if need be. Um but yeah, once we once we start talking to them, we can understand their needs and uh and and train them to the level that they want to be and and what have you. So we can really help help them get into the industry, everything from an electrician to an existing A V company.
SPEAKER_02So you start that journey, yeah, go to your website, yeah, call Andy, yeah, and uh and and and sell this fantastic product. Exactly. It is amazing. But uh Andy, thanks for your time and uh enjoy the rest of the show. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Cheers, bye, bye.