LIGHTING CONTROL
Overview
Architecture fuses shape with purpose. It isn’t just about aesthetics or function - it’s about how we experience our home as a whole. Lighting stands as perhaps the most important element in our interaction with our environment and the expression of architecture. It sets the mood for an intimate dinner or a spirited party; it accents our art, livens a room and provides safety for our family. Lighting evokes the magic of architecture and is one of the most important aspects of our living spaces.
How it works
Lighting control systems replace traditional switches with intelligent devices enabling each light, switch or dimmer in your home to be addressed via digital controls. This enables any light in your home to be controlled from intuitive low-voltage keypads, touchscreens or even the web. Lighting control systems allow many lights to be adjusted and controlled at the touch of a single button regardless of location. Such systems also provide control of other devices such as shades, drapes and firepaces from the same keypad, and are a required part of a well executed whole-home integrated control system.
Features and Benefits
- Direct control of every light in a home from a single location
- Group control of any light or group of lights from any location
- Personalization through a wide variety of keypad options
- Simplified control of areas with multiple switches
- Replaces many switches with a single, simple control
- Self explanatory backlit labelling of buttons
- Saves energy by dimming lights and single-button “all off” control
- No rewiring required to reconfigure controls
- Decor matches a wide variety of finishes
- Automatic recall of preset lighting levels
- Enables control of lights from integration systems
- Vacation mode learns your habits and executes while away
Technical Details
Lighting control systems use a set of solid-state PWM dimmers, logically addressed by small microprossesors. The intellegent dimmers and switches used to control the lighting reside on a serial network in a daisy chain topology. Keypads or other logic inputs trigger the dimmers and relays via a central processor. One or more central processors running an embedded operating systems and operating on solid state (no hard drives) micros and storage are configured using a laptop based installer GUI software which compiles and loads on the controller. Thus, any input (button) can be set in software to turn on any light or group of lights to a specific level (0-100%).
The processor can generally handle many thousands of loads and dimmers; multiple processors may be used for failover or increased capacity. Processors have IP and serial connectivity over which outside controllers such as AMX and Crestron can address the systems on a “button by button” basis. In this way, the processor becomes the portal and gateway by which the outside digital world addresses and gets information about the state of the lights in the structure.
Intelligent dimmers can also be placed locally much like traditional switching, but with the ability to be turned on or off by the lighting processor. Last, but not least, reliable smart dimmers and keypads using radio frequency communication allow for retrofittting of these systems without any rewiring.
Fast Facts
- Reduced switch quantity
- Reliable embedded technology
- Hundreds of thousands in service
- Standard in high-end homes
- Enhances architecture
- Simplifies daily use of lights
- Highly customized to each person
- Extensive finish options for controls
- Wireless systems allow retrofitting
- Local dimmers can be smart as well
- All-on and all-off functions
- Reduces excess wall clutter
- Can be scaled to varying budgets