Unica Plus turns the light switch into a paper-scroll slide — Red Dot BoB 2026

Schneider Electric's Shanghai team wanted to redefine the visual and physical form of the light switch. They chose paper — one of China's greatest inventions and the most delicate of everyday materials — plus the traditional scroll, experimenting with folding, cutting and bending to translate thinness and flowing form into a switch.

Redesign the switch as a scroll: a paper-inspired, frameless cover you slide instead of rock — the digital scroll gesture made tactile.

Unica Plus replaces the rocker with an innovative sliding mechanism, housed in a flush-fit frameless body just 4.3 mm thick with softly rounded lines and multiple colours. Because sliding means longer finger contact than pressing, the team developed a matte surface finish inspired by sand and stone, and engineered the slide to stay smooth, durable and safe.

Unica Plus won Red Dot 2026 Best of the Best — the first Schneider Electric product ever to receive the award's top honour — in a competition of more than 12,000 entries from over 60 countries where BoB usually goes to under 1% of entries. The jury praised the 'ingenious' slide that replaces the rocker and its well-thought-out tactile feedback; Schneider took nine Red Dot and iF awards in the same season.

Unica Plus is a light switch series from Schneider Electric that replaces the traditional rocker with a sliding cover, translating the 'digital scrolling gesture' of smartphones into a physical interaction. The Shanghai design team set out to redefine the visual and physical form of the switch, settling on paper — one of the most delicate everyday materials and one of China's greatest inventions — and on the flowing form of the traditional Chinese scroll.

To understand the material, the team experimented with folding, cutting and bending paper, then translated those observations into the switch's slim, frameless profile and softly rounded lines. The slide mechanism was the central engineering challenge: it had to be smooth and precise, yet durable, stable and safe. Because sliding involves longer surface contact than pressing, tactility drove the material choice — a natural finish inspired by the textures of sand and stone.

At 4.3 mm, the series blends almost seamlessly into the wall, meeting the desire to integrate technology into living spaces without visible clutter. The Red Dot jury called the switch's exceptionally flat profile 'impressive', its sliding mechanism 'ingenious' and its tactile feedback 'another well-thought-out and innovative concept'.

At the Red Dot Design Award 2026, Unica Plus received Best of the Best, the competition's highest distinction — the first time a Schneider Electric product had taken the top honour — as part of nine Red Dot and iF awards the company won that season.

It updates a commodity object by borrowing an instinctive digital gesture, so users understand it instantly.

The cultural metaphor — Chinese paper and the scroll — turns an engineering mechanism into a meaningful design story.

Sliding rather than pressing made the switch flatter and frameless, solving both interaction and integration.

Tactility was treated as a design material, not an afterthought, because the new gesture needs longer contact.

The win — Schneider's first BoB — shows a commodity product can carry an award-level idea.

Borrow a gesture people already know: mapping the digital scroll onto a physical switch made a commodity object feel new — the cultural metaphor gave the mechanism a story.

The award gave Schneider Electric's China Design Lab a flagship story: Unica Plus became visible proof that industrial design is 'the key path for energy technology to reach users', in the words of the lab's vice-president. The same season, Schneider took nine international design honours, including Red Dot and iF awards for its Acti9 Pro circuit breakers, Modicon controllers and EasyLogic panels, positioning design as a systematic, repeatable capability rather than a one-off product win.