Never come home to a dark house again, fumbling for the light switch. Safety, security, convenience, and ambience are the primary reasons to automate lighting controls. There are many benefits to lighting control systems in the home:
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Check the status of any light in the house from your bedside and turn them on or off. |
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Give your home a lived in look while you're away. |
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Set the mood for entertaining with preset scenes. |
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Extend bulb life and save energy. |
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Have lights come on when a door is opened or when a car enters the driveway. |
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Program exterior lights based on actual dusk and dawn times. |
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Or have your lights adjust automatically by time of day. |
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Turn off all the lights in the house with one button as you leave. |
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Program Pathways - light the way from current room to destination room with one button. |
Lighting Scenes
Most rooms in our homes serve several different purposes. Desired lighting levels may vary depending on how the room will be used, what time of day it is or a particular mood you are trying to create. A push on a single button can transform the look of your home with preset lighting scenes. You can create a dramatic or relaxing effect in your home to enhance your parties, family movie nights, or romantic dinners for two. Whole house lighting sequences such as "entertain", "good night", and "away" are very convenient.
Some examples of scenes for various rooms:
Kitchen
eating
cooking
cleaning
entertaining
Family Room
viewing movie
reading
entertaining
relaxing
reading
children playing
Bedroom
sleeping level night lights
viewing television
romance
Bathroom
make up or shaving
night lights
relaxing in tub/spa
Pathways to rooms
night lights
Additional Areas
landscape
driveway
pool & patio
Advantages of lighting
controls
Intelligent lighting controls have many advantages over manual ones, including convenience, security, creating ambience, increased design flexibility, reduced lamp replacement costs, energy savings, and even save you time.
Convenience & Ambience
With intelligent lighting the circuit levels are pre-programmed according to use and according to other factors such as daylight level entering the home or building. Light fittings can be controlled individually or grouped together. Each group or fitting can be set to be at a different level of brightness. These levels are then stored as a "scene" which can best be thought of as being a complete "look" to a room or area. A common number of scenes are eight, though some systems can have many more. Once set up, scenes can be easily recalled manually from wall mounted switch panels or by remote control. They can be recalled automatically by timer, by daylight sensor or according to occupancy. Once a new scene is selected the lighting will fade to the new set of levels at a pre-determined rate.
Energy Saving
When dimming a lamp the energy saved is as high as 98% of the proportion of unused energy. Because the human eye perceives light non-linearly, it is possible to reduce light levels by over 10% before the reduction in brightness is noticed. This would lead to a near 10% saving in energy consumption. A 50% reduction in dimming levels would save around 40% of the energy.
Intelligent dimmers ramp or fade a lamp to a preset level. This is particularly important when the lamp is first turned on. Incandescent lamps tend to fail at this point due to thermal shock of the cold filament. By fading the lamp to the set level, also know as "soft start", a lamps life is extended considerably. At 10% dimming a lamp will last twice as long and at 50% dimming it will last 20 times as long. Voltage stabilization, available on more expensive systems, protects lamps against spikes and peaks in mains voltage.
Not all lamps are easily dimmable, some like compact fluorescent lamps, can only be switched on or off. However, energy can still be saved if they are turned off automatically when not required. For example, during a bright day the lamps near a window can be turned off where normally they would be left on. A sensor that measures daylight provides an input value to the controller that will measure the value over time and use that information to switch or dim circuits to per-determined levels.
Energy savings can be derived through occupancy detection. Sensors are mounted in rooms, which detect if there is movement within the room or area. They feed that information back to the controller, which counts a period of time that no movement has been detected for. Each time movement is detected the count will be reset. Once movement has not been detected for a preset period of time the lighting in that room or area can be either switched off or turned down to a low energy saving level. After a further period of no movement they can be turned off altogether.
Security
Lighting can play an important part in security, deterring intruders whether the property is occupied or not. Low levels of illumination can be programmed to operate at night in certain rooms or hallways. When the house is unoccupied levels can be selected that copy normal usage. This can be by time clock or by selecting a vacation mode. Dimmed or selectively switched levels of illumination will save energy and is more effective than leaving lighting on or using simple plug in timers.
Request Lutron Lighting System Literature
see Lutron Homeworks System Overview Example Diagram
If you're planning to build soon, we'd love to have you stop by our showroom and demonstrate what advantages lighting control systems can offer. We're located just a little over thirty minutes from Pittsburgh and nine miles from Route 28. Call 724-360-0047 for an appointment and see how we have integrated cutting-edge technology into everyday life.
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FAIL-SAFE OPERATION In the unlikely event of a disruption of communication with the Processor, the HomeWorks® Interactive™ Vareo-Style Local Lighting Controls and GRAFIK Eye Preset Local Lighting Controls remain fully functional. CONDITIONAL LOGIC HomeWorks Interactive provides the capability to make system events conditional. For example, driveway sensors can be programmed to turn on exterior lighting if, and only if, it is dark. As another example, a single "Dining" button on a Keypad might set different lighting and music, based on the time of day, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. ASTRONOMIC TIMECLOCK HomeWorks Interactive allows events to occur automatically at a specific time of day or at a time relative to sunrise or sunset. Multiple schedules can be programmed, allowing for different timeclock events on weekdays, weekends, holidays, etc. Timeclock schedules can also be enabled or disabled from Keypads. Additionally, any timeclock event can be programmed using conditional logic, so the event will occur only if a specified condition is met. SECURITY MODE HomeWorks Interactive can be connected to a security system to activate lights in case of an alarm. Selected lights will turn on to a predetermined security level, or flash repeatedly to attract attention. Security Mode may also be activated manually from a Keypad. |
VACATION
MODE
HomeWorks Interactive constantly monitors and records the state of all system devices in a home. When Vacation Mode is activated, the system plays back these events, providing a realistic appearance of activity while the home is unoccupied. The system can be programmed to record either the last day's, the last week's, or the last two weeks' activities. POWER-FAILURE MEMORY All HomeWorks Interactive components are designed with 10-year power-failure memory. If power is interrupted and restored, lights will automatically return to the levels to which they were set prior to the power outage. HomeWorks Interactive system programming is retained in non-volatile memory and not affected by loss of power. TELEPHONE INTERFACE An optional Telephone Interface allows the homeowner to access and control up to nine different functions or events from any touchtone phone. The Telephone Interface guides the homeowner through each step with customized voice messages and provides positive verbal response when a function or event has been activated. This capability can also be utilized from telephones within the house, making any phone a convenient nine-button keypad. AESTHETIC CONSISTENCY All HomeWorks Interactive Keypads, GRAFIK Eye Controls, and Vareo-Style Local Lighting Controls complement each other with matching colors, styles and finishes. A full range of wall plates, receptacles, telephone jacks, and cable jacks are available to match the system controls. Controls can also be customized to match a home's paint colors, wall coverings, or decor. |
Lighting Considerations - cedia.net
A Day in the Life - Lutron.com (takes a minute to load)
Experience Center - Residential System Online
Why Choose Lutron? - Lutron.com
The Magic of Lutron Lighting Control - by Randy Cribb, Earsay Audio Advice
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