The Thoughtful Application of Lighting Controls

Often overlooked in the application of lighting controls in residential homes is the lighting design itself. It makes no senses to add sophisticated and costly controls to ill planned lighting. One must plan the lighting first and only then apply the controls. Planning your lighting first with a lighting professional first is the only recipe for success with lighting controls.

This article assumes that professional layered lighting design is already in place.

In order to properly install and configure home lighting controls, it is necessary to give careful thought to manner in which the homeowner will be using those controls. Many times, home automation specialists get carried away with the complexities of advanced technology, and end up creating a home lighting control system that is too complex to be easily and intuitively used by the homeowner. The Adaptive Lighting Design ® approach differs sharply from this approach. Our methodology centers on the simplicity of a control system that is logical and consistent. Our experience has taught us that once the system becomes familiar to the user; its functionality becomes amazingly simple and intuitive.

The thoughtful application of home lighting control involves simplicity on the component level as well. We design and engineer lighting control modules throughout the home and conceal them behind enclosure panels. This keeps them out of sight, and better maintains the interior home aesthetic that we work so hard to create with our ADAPTIVE ® method of home lighting. Access to these home lighting control modules is then provided through low-voltage key pads whose configuration is designed to accommodate the instinctive movements of a person’s hand while operating the system. We avoid the overly complex arrays that many system installers create with sliding dimmer controls and hand-held remotes. We have found that these items, though good in concept, are seldom used by the homeowner as often as the key pad itself. Dimmers can often be difficult to precisely adjust due to the sliding mechanism of the control, and remotes can be just as easily misplaced just like the remote from a television set.

Rather, we configure a home lighting control system entirely operable from the standpoint of the key pad itself. People find it much more convenient to push buttons that are pre-programmed to perform a certain task, and the key pad itself is much easier to find in a dark or shadowy room interior. Furthermore, the user-friendliness of a touch pad system is further augmented by the designations we assign to each respective key. There are only six buttons on a standard system to learn, and there is no memorization of complex technical concepts or applied technology required of the homeowner. In a moment we will look at how this basic and very simple system of home lighting control can be further customized, but for the time being, a standard touch panel array is configured as follows:

1.     Top Left Button- ON

2.     Bottom Left Button- OFF

3.     Middle Top Button- Raise Brightness

4.     Middle Bottom Button- Lower Brightness

5.     Right Top Button- Adjoining Room Lights ON

6.     Bottom Right Button- Adjoining Room Lights OFF

To make it more convenient for people to move from a well-lit room to a darker or completely dark room, we include two more buttons on our standard home lighting control system touch panels. These buttons control on and off settings for lights in the adjoining room, vestibule, foyer, bathroom, or hallway. As a person leaves one room and enters another, he or she can turn the lights on in the next room and then turn them off in the room just exited by using the bottom left button on the controller. If lighting levels then need to be further raised or lowered upon entry into the next room, this can be done through the middle control buttons as was the case in the previous room.

These positions are based upon the movements of the human hand, and require no reinvention of the wheel when setting up a lighting control system throughout the home. If need be, other special buttons can be programmed to control such functions as the opening and closing of shades and the operation of home audio. These additional functions can be quickly and easily configured without changing the basic configuration of the standard 6-button lighting control touch panel.

Please remember that processor based lighting controls were developed to make your homes functions easier not more complex. Search out an experienced lighting and controls specialist that does not leave these tasks in the hands of inexperienced practitioners.

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