Home Automation - lutron lighting | eu online shop

lutron lighting | uk online shop has simplified the purchasing process - you can either purchase everything online or call our support desk for help and advice, then purchase off-line over the phone, or continue with an online purchase.

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How to select the right lighting automation system for your home.

There are basically 2 types of system configurations - whole house or room by room

Whole House Systems.

Whole house systems, as it suggests, provides a system to control every light circuit in your home. In simple terms it works by having a light switch wall station which is totally soft-configurable to switch or dim any 1 or any combination of lights. And the import feature is, that as every wall station is soft-configurable, they can be re-assigned at any time in the future.

This is a typical Lutron light switch wall station

It consists of 11 buttons in total. There are 2 columns of four buttons, these are programmed for light scenes and shading controls.

The low group of 3 buttons are normally configured as an All Off and dim up and dim down control.

The point is that the eight light scene buttons can be set to switch any 1 or any combination of light circuits, anywhere in the house. Let me give you typical example;

In the Living Room

This 4 circuit configuration is a typical lighting configuration for a principle living space as it will produce very dramatic mood lighting scenes.

Shading Circuit 5 motorized blinds or curtain tracks
Programming the light switch wall station

We would then typically group the 4 buttons on the right to control the lights within the room while the four buttons on the left would have special functions.

Our light scene buttons would do the following

The top button would switch all the lighting in the living room to Full On. (note Full On may actually be only 90% on, I will explain why at the end of this page ).

The other 3 buttons, would set the light scenes,

Light scene 2 and scene 3 could be for watching TV or entertaining friends, while scene 4 is for viewing a late night film. This configuration would produce a very relaxing atmosphere.

But the important point is that the pre-set light scenes can be changed and re-assigned to suite the room and how it is used. remember, nothing is fixed in stone, it is all soft-configurable.

The four special function buttons on the left hand side

Top Button would close the blinds or curtains, Second button would open the blinds or curtains

There are also some other clever features, for example, press the top button to close the blinds, then press it again to stop the blinds in mid-way, then either press the same button again to continue to close the blinds, or press the other button to re-open the blinds.

Special Buttons 3 and 4

These could be used to control lights in an adjacent living space. We could create a path of light from the living room, through the hall to the kitchen. Creating a path, maybe setting 2 or 3 light circuits in the hall to mid dimmed levels, and setting the lights on in the kitchen to a pleasant light scene. Pressing the button again, when you arrive back from the kitchen, turns the path off.

Special button 4, could light a path to the front door, so when callers arrive you can set lights from the living room via the hall to the front door.

The point here is to demonstrate, that each button is totally soft-configurable, it can be assigned and re-assigned to any combination of light circuits.

Now apply this to your whole house. You can quickly see that you can create a whole house lights off button by the bedside, like wise a whole house lights on panic button. Create a path of light from the master bedroom to the kitchen via the landing and hall.

You will also be able to have whole house light scenes, this is ideal to set all interior and exterior lights for an evening or night time setting.

With internet access, you can control lights and even the heating system from any where in the world using a lap top or mobile-pc device.

Room by Room Systems

Room by room systems provide the same level of lighting control with-in a room, but provide less opportunity to control lights in other spaces.

Uses similar function key pads

It is possible to create some whole house light functions using the system, but there some limitations. Firstly the whole house function will only control rooms where the lights are on the system. Also the combinations are restricted, but having said that, for a property with fewer rooms, like an apartment or say a 4 bedroom executive home, a room by room system is very cost effective and will cover 80% of the whole house system functionality.

How to progress your project

You can ask for help right now, by requesting a call back

If you want a room by room system, you can purchase equipment online now. See the Lutron Grafik Eye 3000 Series

You can read a little more about the various systems, by down loading the brochures below...

The reason is basically to extend lamp life. If we set the full on to be 90% and the dimmer to soft-start (soft-start means the lights dim up over a second or 2 rather than switch on instantly) this will extend the life of low voltage lamps almost indefinitely. I say almost as the lamps must fail at some point, but systems we installed for clients 8 years ago, are still using the same lamps.

I would add that the indefinite life tip does not apply to mains voltage halogen or incandescent lamps, their life is only extended by 2 - 3 times normal life.