Smart home
How Regin made room for style
Gone are the days when room control served purely comfort. Today’s property owners and interior designers seek not only comfort but also energy savings and aesthetic appeal. LED lighting has recently emerged as a means to add style to user interfaces. In 2024, Regin, a Swedish company, launched their first smart room controller featuring a matrix of LEDs that shine through the front panel – the Regio RCX.
Challenge
- Create an innovative shine-through LED user interface
- Enable efficient control and connectivity – for easy remote room control and wireless setup
- Ensure a minimal electronics footprint to allow a sleek device design
Solution
- Leverage ST’s wireless microcontroller module to control built-in sensors, manage the user interface, and configure and commission the room controller via Bluetooth in a pre-certified, compact form factor
Impact
- Stylish, modern & easy to clean room controller
- Better energy management in buildings and homes
Smart building meets interior design
Minimalism, clean, modern feel…. Scandinavians are celebrated worldwide for their impeccable home design, and Regin’s Regio RCX is a shining example. This smart room controller has swiftly won the hearts of hoteliers, architects, and interior designers, becoming a must-have in modern hotels, office buildings, and design-centric spaces. What sets it apart? No more LCD screens. No more fingerprints to clean. Instead, a stylish LED user interface with an intuitive UI for direct control and comprehensive tools for installation, configuration and updates via a smartphone or a PC.
“
Redefining UI helped us to really kick-start sales beyond our wildest expectations. ST’s hardware was key to this success.
”
Ola Dawidson, VP Product Management, Regin
Uplifting UI in smart buildings
The modern user interface is all about minimalism – technology should disappear behind intuitive interfaces. Regin had to move fast in the highly competitive building automation market. However, integrating a smart LED design into a compact form factor, where wireless performance is central, proved technically challenging. This is precisely where ST came in. The Swedish team chose ST’s wireless microcontroller module, which efficiently controls the user interface as well as the Regio RCX’s built-in sensors, and transmits data via Bluetooth Low Energy® during the crucial commissioning phase. Why? First and foremost, the module allowed for a minimal PCB design, leaving the designer all the freedom to build a stylish device.
“
ST’s wireless module enabled a sleek design by providing the needed space.
”
Mikael Carlsander, Product Manager, Room Products, Regin
Without compromising on wireless performance
In today's world of unpredictable energy costs, performance is just as crucial as style. The ability to maximize energy efficiency while enhancing comfort is a pressing concern for everyone. Regin conducted rigorous tests on various wireless microcontroller modules, and among all the tests, ST’s Bluetooth Low Energy® (BLE) wireless microcontroller module performed the best. The module—often referred to as the brain—excels in accurately monitoring and controlling the Regio RCX’s built-in sensors for temperature, humidity, CO2, VOC, and motion detection. Its BLE capability made it the perfect choice to enable best-in-class commissioning and upgrading. Compactness, performance, and connectivity—ST’s module ticked all the boxes.
“
When benchmarking, ST’s wireless MCU module consistently offered the most accurate sensor monitoring results.
”
Gunnar Åberg, Product Manager, Systems, Regin
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