Most smart-home keypads are designed to disappear into the wall. Moorgen wants you to stop and pick one up.
At the Luxe Design Show in Toronto, the Moorgen stand had a keypad carved from natural stone, aged with 24-karat gold, heavy enough in the hand to feel like a paperweight. It was designed by Zaha Hadid. Standing in front of it, the usual pitch about a control system, how many devices it talks to and which protocols it supports, felt beside the point. That is exactly the reaction the brand is engineering.
Zebra Home Cinema spoke with Muhammad, the brand's representative for the United States and Canada, about what a German luxury home-automation company is doing chasing art-object status for something as mundane as a light switch.
What Makes Moorgen Different (and It Isn't the Function)
Ask Muhammad to separate Moorgen from the dozens of control systems on the market and he starts by conceding the obvious. Functionally, they all do the same job.
"In the function, they're the same. They control the lighting, the shading, sound, video, everything. What makes Moorgen different is the design. You're putting a piece of art inside the wall. Every time you pass these keypads, you enjoy them. You're not going to ignore such beauty."
That is the whole thesis. Lighting, shading, climate, audio and video control are table stakes. The brand competes on the one piece of the system you actually touch and look at every day. Where most integrators treat the wall plate as a necessary compromise, Moorgen treats it as the product.
The Zaha Hadid Collaboration
The centrepiece of the stand was the work the brand has done with Zaha Hadid Design. The British studio's first smart-home product is part of Moorgen's Landmark Series, keypads inspired by Hadid's buildings, with the same restless, curved geometry.
The example Muhammad handed over made the case better than any spec sheet. It was stone, finished in black and gold, and its surface was deliberately uneven, some keys sitting fractionally higher than others, so your fingers find them by feel.
"This is the first smart keypad that Zaha created. The surface is not the same, a little lower, a little higher. And it's magnetic, so you can place it like this, or like this."
The collaboration extends to security. The Zaha Hadid-designed T66 smart lock, nicknamed the "Queen of Curve," pairs 3D facial recognition with a tempered-glass body and the same sculptural language as the panels. Hadid died in 2016, and the work carrying her name here is among the last consumer product design from her studio's collaboration, which is part of why the brand leans on it so heavily.
Materials: Stone, 24-Karat Gold, and Swarovski
Pick up a Moorgen panel and the first thing you register is weight. That is intentional. The brand builds its surfaces from natural stone, metal, glass and gold, and pointedly, never plastic.
"This brand is German, mostly focused on high-end materials. Natural stone, metal on the surface, 24-karat gold-plating. The normal one is glass on top. We don't have a plastic one."
It also has a partner most control-system makers cannot claim. Moorgen is Swarovski's only collaborator in the global smart-home field, setting the Austrian crystal into a line of panels alongside other rare-material finishes. The industry has noticed. The M58 dimming remote alone has collected four of the major international design prizes: Germany's Red Dot, the iF Design Award, America's IDEA, and Japan's Good Design Award.
Lighting That Moves to You
Hardware aside, the most genuinely useful idea on the stand was a track-mounted lighting system that physically repositions to follow what you are doing.
"If you want to use the dining table, you don't need so many lights above it. You move them and focus on the table. When you want to rest, you move them around and make a darker area. If you want to study, you press one button and the light comes to you."
This is scene control made tangible. Lighting scenes, preset combinations of brightness and position recalled with a single touch, are standard in high-end automation. What is unusual is pairing them with fixtures that actually move, so a room reconfigures its light for dinner, reading, or a film rather than just dimming in place.
The Countertop Remotes
Not every control belongs on a wall. The brand's answer is a family of countertop remotes, stone-bodied dials and knobs you keep within arm's reach on a side table, customisable down to a handful of buttons for lighting, shades, climate or music.
Anyone who has spent time around reference audio will recognise the lineage. The look deliberately echoes the Steinway & Sons iconic remote, the 24-karat-gold controller built for six-figure audio systems, a piece Zebra clients tend to know well from the Steinway Lyngdorf world. Moorgen is making the same argument in a different room: the object you reach for to dim the lights should feel as considered as the system it commands.
A New Take on the Humble Switch
The quietest product on the stand might be the most commercially shrewd. Moorgen has designed a line of non-smart toggle switches for the North American market, ordinary mechanical switches rethought as design objects.
"If you know the toggle switch we have everywhere, it's the same. We came with this design. Glass on top, metal face, curved or minimal, this gives the designer the ability to choose which panel suits the space."
It is a smart wedge into a project. Not every room needs an automated keypad, but every room has switches, and a designer specifying these mechanical switches for the secondary spaces keeps one material language running through the whole home. Muhammad put the premium at roughly 20 to 50 percent over a standard switch, modest in the context of the interiors these end up in.
Decorative Lighting, Down to the Coaster
The stand closed on the smallest pieces. A coaster cut from alabaster that illuminates the glass set on top of it. A portable alabaster table lamp you can pick up and move anywhere. Neither controls anything. Both extend the same idea, that a home's everyday objects can carry light and craft rather than only function.
Why This Belongs in a Home Cinema Conversation
It is fair to ask why a home-cinema specialist is walking a smart-home design stand. The answer is that in a luxury residential project, the control interface is the one piece of technology the client physically touches every single day, and it is usually the piece that gets the least design attention.
Zebra Home Cinema's work hides the hard technology: the projector, the rack, the acoustic treatment, the speakers behind fabric. What stays visible is the interface. A brand like Moorgen, which has turned the keypad and the switch into objects worth looking at, solves the other half of the same problem, the part of the system that never disappears. For designers and homeowners building at this level, that pairing of invisible engineering and visible craft is the whole game.
Key Takeaways
- ▪Moorgen is a German luxury home-automation brand that competes on industrial design rather than features. Its lighting, shading, climate and audio-video control is conventional. Its keypads, switches and remotes are treated as art objects built from stone, metal, glass and 24-karat gold.
- ▪Its headline collaboration is with Zaha Hadid Design, including a sculptural stone keypad in the Landmark Series and the "Queen of Curve" T66 smart lock with 3D facial recognition, the studio's first venture into smart-home product design.
- ▪Moorgen is Swarovski's only smart-home partner, and its M58 dimming remote has won the Red Dot, iF, IDEA, and Good Design awards, a level of design recognition rare in the control-hardware category.
- ▪Beyond connected devices, the brand makes designer non-smart toggle switches for North America, letting a single material language run through both automated and ordinary rooms in a home.
- ▪For luxury residential and home-cinema projects, Moorgen addresses the half of integration that stays visible, the interface the client touches daily, complementing the hidden AV engineering that Zebra Home Cinema specialises in.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Moorgen?
Moorgen is a German luxury home-automation and smart-lock brand built around industrial design. It produces keypads, switches, remotes and locks that control lighting, shading, climate, and audio-video systems, distinguishing itself through high-end materials such as natural stone, metal, glass and 24-karat gold, and through collaborations with designers including Zaha Hadid.
Who designs Moorgen's smart panels?
Moorgen works with internationally recognised designers, most notably Zaha Hadid Design, whose Landmark Series of smart panels was the studio's first smart-home product. The brand also holds a strategic partnership with Swarovski, setting Austrian crystal into a dedicated line of panels alongside other rare-material finishes.
What is the Moorgen Zaha Hadid smart lock?
It is the T66, nicknamed the "Queen of Curve," a designer smart lock by Zaha Hadid Design that combines 3D facial recognition with a tempered-glass body and the studio's signature curved geometry. It is positioned as one of the most luxurious digital locks on the market.
What design awards has Moorgen won?
Moorgen's M58 smart dimming remote has won four of the major global design awards: Germany's Red Dot, the iF Design Award, America's IDEA, and Japan's Good Design Award. This level of recognition is unusual for smart-home control hardware, which is typically judged on function rather than form.
Is Moorgen available in North America?
Yes. Moorgen has representation for the United States and Canadian markets and showcased its range at the Luxe Design Show in Toronto, including a line of designer non-smart toggle switches developed specifically for the North American market.
