Incredible Attributes Of Automated Lighting Control For New And Remodeled Houses

The conception that one can have actual control over the individual light loads in one's home has come a long way from its inception thirty years ago. In fact, I would assert lighting control systems have reached a peak in preeminence as of this writing. You, my reader today, may not be as fluent in the language of lighting control as some others, so I am going to begin by making sure you comprehend just what a lighting control system is and some of the advantages you would derive from installing one in your home.

Lighting control is a technology where each light load is controlled differently and lights can be controlled as a group. When I say control, I mean you can control every aspect of the light.

Choose the Illumination Level

It's not like the olden days that when you flipped a light switch the light would snap on at 100% illumination. No, these days you can decide the illumination level of the light in advance by programming the switch to turn on at 80% as an example.

Money On Your Lighting Bill

A reduced level of 90% is practically indistinguishable from full-on, yet conserves 10% energy. If set at 80% illumination, energy conservation is 20%. Lights set at 50% illumination save 50% energy. Now multiply this energy conservation number by your entire home.

Special Lights

Some lights are purposely programmed to come on at a much derated light illumination level, not to conserve energy necessarily, but to serve a unique need such as a porch light. Sometimes porch lights are programmed to come on at forty to sixty percent.

Program Ramp-Up Rate

One can program the rate at which a light turns on from 0% to whatever level it has been set to shine. Everyone knows how uncomfortable it is to turn on a light in a dark room only to have it snap to the on condition at 100%. Now it can be programmed to ramp up slowly from 0% to the desired illumination over a few seconds to several minutes.

Program Fade Rate

Lights can also be programmed to fade down the illumination level at a controlled rate. It's no fun to be in the bathroom getting ready for bed and turn out the last light in the house at night only to walk across the room toward the bed in total darkness. How many stubbed toes have resulted from that age old action? Now when you turn off the light switch, the light will slowly fade to 0% illumination level over a couple seconds to several minutes.

Single or Dual Tap?

There are two approaches to turning on a given light. If you tap the decora type light switch once, the light ramps up at the rate it has been programmed. Or you can quickly touch the light switch two times and it will snap on immediately. Of course, the same is true when you are turning the light off. One touch and it fades at the rate it has been programmed, or two taps and it snaps to 0%.

Lighting Scenes

The most significant utilization of any lighting control system is the ability to control lighting scenes. Energy conservation is infinitely important and so are smooth ramp rates, but it is the ability to control chosen lights as a group that really gets the public's attention. You can design any number of lighting scenes, determine which lights will be part of the scenes, and how the lighting scenes will be executed. Lighting a pathway through your house is but one example.

Clean Slate

Designing a scene gives the home owner a blank slate in terms illumination of select lights. For example, just because you include a living room light that normally ramps up to a light illumination level of 75% does not mean that you are stuck with that performance when it is selected for a scene. You will be able to determine all new ramp, fade, and illumination performance levels for that select light when it is included as part of a scene.

There is more good news about selected lights being part of lighting scenes. Just because you programmed the parameters of that living room light we included in our first scene, does not mean you are stuck with those parameters in any new scenes. Again you will have a blank slate when programming the properties of that living room light.

I include scads more data about the different types of lighting control systems, and the pros and cons of each, in other articles. However, contained within this article without any further explanation you can see that a quality lighting control system offers much to people who are building new homes or remodeling an existing house. One thing is for sure and that is when people experience true automated lighting control, for even a short period of time, it is very difficult for them to live without it ever again.