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Lighting control has three main elements

What you control

How you control

Making your life simple

What you control

Lighting is made up of various types of lights with a number of different dimming options.

Phase dim, DALI, 0-10v, DMX are the main options and most control systems can deal with all forms of control.

Grouping your lights is more subjective. It's not based on a right and wrong but more a design of personal taste. Let's look at a typical project to get an overall idea of what we could do.

Let's look at a master bedroom and bathroom...


From the diagram, you can see we have the following circuits/groups of lights:

Circuit Details
1D Bathroom ceiling (Phase Dim)
2D Bathroom Mirror (Phase Dim)
3D Bedroom Low level night lights (Phase Dim)
4D Dressing Table (Phase Dim)
5D Dressing Ceiling (Phase Dim)
6D Bedroom Chandeliers (Phase Dim)
7D Bedroom Ceiling (Phase Dim)
8D Bed Right Reading Light (Phase Dim)
9D Bed Left Reading Light (Phase Dim)
1DALI Under Bath LED Tape
2DALI Bathroom Mirror LED Tape
3DALI Dressing Low Level Cupboard LED Tape

That's 12 circuits, any of which could be set ON, OFF or anywhere from 1% to 99%.

Complicated for a user - but not for a lighting control system. A one button press programmed to bath time is easy.
That's what a lighting control system does, it makes life easy. So the next step is how you control.

How you control

Various manufacturers have their specialist controllers however, in essence they are all the same.

Many people think of rotary switches at this point but 12 rotary switches on a wall is ugly and complicated to use.
So think in terms of actions instead of circuits. Actions like:

  • Watching TV
  • Eating Dinner
  • Entertaining
  • Reading
  • Relaxing
  • Working From Home
  • Cleaning
  • Security/Emergency

And above all, keep it simple. Press a button and get a scene. If you want a little manual control, add two simple to use buttons: raise and lower.
This keeps the relative lighting levels between circuits (the scene) intact but makes it brighter or dimmer. Remember - keep it simple.

Making your life simple

So you have a lighting control system: why not use its power? Here are some ideas:

Press a button when you go to bed which turns all lights down stairs OFF.
Press a button at the front door when you leave the house which turns all lights OFF.
Link your house alarm to the lighting system such that when you set the alarm on leaving the house all your lights turn OFF.
Turning the alarm off when you get home turns the lights ON in the kitchen and hallway.
Emergency lights / flood lights outside turn ON if someone breaks in and the alarm triggers.
Toilet lights do nothing during the day, automatically turn on if its dark out side and automatically turn on to a low level night light scene between midnight and 5 AM.

Free configuration

Configuration is the setup of the system so that dimmers know which circuits they connect to, which keypad controls which dimmers and labelling so that an electrician can install the system and make it work straight out of the box.

We build and setup your system in our offices and then ship to you.

Please note that some elements of some systems still require on site programming however, our free configuration service can significantly reduce this cost for you.