When our company moved to a new office in 2024, I was tasked with sourcing and coordinating the lighting and electrical fit-out for 400 employees across three floors. My background is purchasing, not electrical engineering, so I had to learn fast. This is the checklist I wish I'd had—a practical walkthrough of how we specified and installed Legrand switches, dimmers, occupancy sensors, and zigbee sockets, and why we chose Paulmann zigbee for certain accent areas.
Who This Checklist Is For (And When To Use It)
This is for facility managers, office administrators, or project leads overseeing a commercial renovation or new build. It covers the electrical rough-in through final commissioning of a basic smart lighting system. We're assuming you're working with a licensed electrician (please do not DIY this) and that you have a budget that allows for mid-range to premium automation. This whole process took us roughly 6 weeks, from product selection to final testing. If you're on a tight deadline, the trick is ordering ahead—our biggest lesson.
Step 1: Audit Your Spaces and Define Zones
Before you order a single switch, walk every room. We have:
- Private offices: 40 rooms, each needing a switch and an occupancy sensor.
- Open-plan workstations: 8 large zones with row lighting.
- Conference rooms (4): Needs dimming and scene control.
- Kitchen/break areas (2): Simple on/off, maybe a motion sensor.
- Hallways and bathrooms: Occupancy/vacancy sensors only.
I made a spreadsheet with each location, the fixture type, and the specific Legrand product I thought we'd need. This became our purchase order. Pro tip: Account for a 10% overage on sensors—the electricians will break one or two.
Step 2: Choose Your Core Products (Legrand + 3rd Party)
We standardized on the Legrand Radiant line for switches and dimmers in private offices, and their Wattstopper line for the open-plan occupancy sensors. For the conference rooms, we needed architectural dimming—that's where the Legrand lighting control panel came in (the small one, for 4 zones).
Here's the interesting part: we also needed zigbee sockets for task lighting in the open plan. Legrand supports zigbee, but their consumer smart plug is hardwired. That's where Paulmann came in—their Paulmann Zigbee sockets (the Smarte Plug variant) integrated seamlessly with our Legrand hub via Matter. We tested one unit first. Worked perfectly.
Don’t assume everything will play nice. I’m not 100% sure this works with all hubs, so test your specific combo. Take this with a grain of salt: our setup uses a Legrand Hub connected via Wifi to our network. If you’re using a different Matter controller (like the new Apple TV), results may vary.
Step 3: Order With The Right Deadlines (The Expensive Lesson)
In March 2024, I found a great price on Legrand 3-way occupancy sensors from a distributor—about $100 cheaper than our regular supplier. Ordered 60 units. They couldn't provide a proper invoice (handwritten receipt only). Finance rejected the expense. I ended up eating $100 out of my department budget and placing a rush order with the regular vendor for the sensors. The rush shipping cost an extra $400. The alternative was missing a $15,000 office opening event.
So: verify invoicing capability before you buy electrical supplies from an unfamiliar source. And if you're on a deadline, pay for guaranteed delivery. Looking back, I should have just paid the premium for the reliable vendor. At the time, the savings seemed worth the risk.
Step 4: Coordinate with Electrical Rough-In
This is where I felt most out of my depth. The electricians need to know:
- Where each switch goes (including neutral wires! Legrand smart switches need a neutral).
- Where each occupancy sensor will be mounted (usually in the ceiling, or as a wall switch replacement).
- Where the zigbee sockets will be installed (they need to be within range of the hub).
We used Legrand's Wattstopper LWSC series for the job site sensors. The electricians preferred the wall switch style for private offices and the ceiling mount for open plan. I made sure to give them the exact model numbers. Don't assume 'standard' means the same thing to every vendor or tradesperson. One electrician thought a '3-way' switch meant a standard 3-way mechanical switch, not a smart 3-way. Cost me a re-do on 5 offices because they ran the wrong traveler wire.
Step 5: Commissioning and Zoning
Once everything is wired and the power is on, you need to pair everything to the hub. This is surprisingly straightforward with Legrand's app—you scan a QR code on the back of each device. But our project had 120 devices. It took two full days.
The biggest surprise: the Paulmann Zigbee sockets needed to be paired in a specific order (power cycle them one at a time). I lost a whole morning trying to figure out why 3 of 10 wouldn't connect. The Paulmann manual (which is online, not in the box) explains this, but I didn't check until I was frustrated.
Step 6: Test, Test, Test (And Prepare For The Unexpected)
After commissioning, test every device. Walk into every office. Turn on the switch. See if the occupancy sensor turns off the lights after 15 minutes of vacancy. Tweak the timeouts in the app. Legrand's occupancy sensors allow you to adjust the timeout from 1 to 30 minutes. We set ours to 10 minutes, which works for bathrooms and hallways. For offices, we set it to 20 to avoid turning off on someone who's sitting still.
One tester we didn't do: what happens if the wifi goes down? (Ugh, a classic oversight.) The Legrand smart switches still work as dumb switches, but the zigbee-controlled sockets lose their automation. The lights connected to the smart switches continued to work. The Paulmann sockets? They defaulted to whatever state they were in. That was a minor panic moment.
Final Checklist: What To Double-Check
- Neutral wire available at every switch box (if using Legrand smart switches).
- Invoicing capability of all suppliers (no handwritten receipts).
- 3-way wiring correct for the smart switch model (not the mechanical version).
- Zigbee range—do you need a repeater? Our Legrand hub covers about 30 feet through drywall. For a 3-floor office, we needed a second hub.
- Matter compatibility—test one unit before bulk ordering any zigbee socket from Paulmann or other 3rd party.
- Emergency overrides—our fire marshal required a manual bypass for the occupancy sensors.
I'm not 100% sure this same checklist applies to LED tube light retrofits, but if you're installing those on a ceiling, the same rough-in coordination matters. The Legrand switches will work with any dimmable LED driver that supports forward-phase dimming (which is most of them).
So glad we went with Legrand for this project (dodged a bullet on a cheaper brand that had connectivity issues, according to a colleague). The occupancy sensors alone are saving us about $300/month in energy costs, according to our facilities manager's rough estimates. It wasn't perfect—we had the wiring error, the rush shipping cost, and a few hours of zigbee pairing frustration—but the system works exactly as intended now. And the confidence of knowing it works? Worth the premium we paid.