Something that did the opposite might be useful. If you take your coat off the hook, the lights go off, because you are leaving.

This, however, seems to stupidly promote having the lights on only when your coat (and you by extension) are out of the house.

I don't get it. What's the point?

How about a spring-loaded light switch / coat hook would be awesome... you walk in the office, take off your coat, the light turns on. You walk out to leave, pick up your coat, light turns off... less subversive, more useful!

My first thought, too. This thing is made exactly backwards. Lame.

in MOST countries in the world, the light is ON when the switch is down... D'UH!

you walk in, hang up your coat, the light goes ON, you take your coat OFF the switch, the light goes OFF...

d'oh on me! i checked out their website. they want us to use NO electricity, therefore, they are an american style lightswitch of down is off, up is on... shame on me.

in MOST countries in the world, the light is ON when the switch is down... D'UH!

"D'UH" to you. Prove what you just said.

If that were true Rearl...why does the switch in the photograph say "OFF" in the down position?

All you have to do is wire the switch backwards. Have it on in the down position and off in the up position. Take your coat and turn off on the way out.

The internets just got stupider thanks to this article

It's not hard to confirm that lights on being up is an american convention. A quick google will show you that

Talk about sadism. That's hilarious. You could always reverse the inside of the switch. Or by a less annoying light switch.

One Man. One Year. $100,000 online. To spend on less annoying light switches.
http://www.oneyeargoal.com

agree'd with the other comments, this would actually be useful if taking the jacket off the switch turned the lights off. But then again their point of this is to have you use no electricity. Well that's just great, so I'll be spending a million bucks on this stupid jack oh shit, plus the light fixture, wireing and all the other crap that goes with it.... just to have it always off. BRILLIANT... not. Why not encourage people to just try doing without lights instead of having this stupid thing that makes no sense?

people people people...
anonymous, prove what? i live in NZ, I've live in the US, and the UK and Australia, and only in the US do the lightswitches go down for off up for on. Thanks Tony Fendall.
Nutmegger? my apologies, i attempted to retract in the post following my D'UH one...

It's for a porch light. You leave the house, you turn it on. You come home, you turn it off.

i live in NZ, I've live in the US, and the UK and Australia, and only in the US do the lightswitches go down for off up for on.

So, three countries not up, one country up.

How about Canada? Mexico? China? Japan? India? Russia?

Down or up for on or off really depends on however you choose to wire the thing. Actually you do not even have to change the wiring, just take off the faceplate and flip the switch housing, wires attached.

There are also wiring configurations where Up or Down changes for on or off, if there is another switch that also connects to the same light circuit-- these are common for stairs. Flip the switch (whichever direction) change the state of the light.

FYI Russia, China, France, Germany, UK...all down = on, up = off. It took me a second reading to realise what this thing actually does, and yes, it's silly.

Unless you're using no energy at all, in which case, at least here in the UK, you'd have to keep your jacket on most of the time anyway 'cause you'd have no heating!!

The only thing I can think this would be good for is for hanging your robe at the end of the evening when going to bed. The problem is that I usually get dressed in the morning instead of putting on my robe.

How about just installing motion detector light switches for your room and shutting of the TV when you're done watching, instead of buying this useless crap?

First of all, in the damb picture it says "off" on the switch when the hook is down. I don't know why everyone argued about that.

Secondly, this makes no sense. They want me to use no electricity? Um. Besides the obvious, I also have not been wearing a coat lately because it is _summer_. Talk about a poorly timed product release.

This would make a lot more sense if it was a thermostat with a hook coming out of it. As in, "heat goes on when jacket comes off". At least that has some kind of logical sense to it.

Finally, I'd like to point out that a standard American light switch of the type pictured would BREAK IN AN ABSURDLY RAPID MANNER if it had a hook attached to it. I assure you, those switches would not stand up to those stresses, unless maybe you were just hanging a child's windbreaker on it day in and day out.

This is beyond idiocy, even as an "artistic" piece.

In US everything is backwards then in the rest of the world. That is why most countries on is down, but in US up is on. Stupid.

Backwards? Up or down... a circuit is open or closed. There is no backwards. Is this some sort of bizarre show of patriotism?

One of my cars has the wiper switch on the left, the other one has it on the right? Please help me figure out which one is backwards...

yeah, really. taking the coat off to turn off the lights would be better, so just reverse the connections when you attach the switch :D

I was born in Europe and my family were refugees during WW2. We ended up in England after the war. My parents always commented on how the British did everything backwards, like driving on the left and flipping light switches down to turn them on. From this I presumed that in Europe light switches were flipped up to turn them on. We eventually emigrated to Canada, where "up" was "on", same as in the United States. What I'm concluding from this is that the "up" for "off" convention originated in England and spread throughout the former British Empire, except Canada, where that would have been counter intuitive due to the proximity of the U.S. I've travelled in Mexico and believe it's also the same as the U.S. However, I recently bought an old Volvo and see that the dash switches are also "upside down", so maybe that convention spread beyond the British Empire.

BTW, I came across this thread while researching this very subject. One would think the electrical codes for all countries would be posted somewhere, but I've yet to find them.