subject: The Benefits of Advanced Home Lighting Technologies [print this page] The Benefits of Advanced Home Lighting Technologies
For most people, controlling your home lighting has meant using numerous light switches and dimmers. However, the increasing availability of advanced home automation equipment has opened up a wealth of possibilities that are now available to the average home owner.
Automated Lighting Systems allow you to:
Be greeted by feature lighting as you pull up to your front door, lighting a path from your parking spot to the house.
Enhance the appearance of your rooms by intelligent highlighting of architecture and features.
Create the desired ambience according to your changing requirements by automatically adjusting multiple lights to create softness or warmth, quietness or even excitement.
Provide intelligent night lighting from a low level in your children's bedrooms to subtly lit paths to bathrooms or down the stairs
Automatically light a route in response to a switch or sensing movement
Connect lighting to timing and sensor systems for additional security
Advanced Scene Lighting
Many rooms have multiple uses and the feeling of being in a dedicated room can be enhanced by configuring multiple scenes in a programmed lighting pattern. In this way, a room used to watch a film will have only peripheral lighting activated during the film, but will have main lights on when the room is used for entertaining people, or localised working lights for reading. These can even be integrated with other systems, so pausing the film can bring the main lights on, or movement can activate additional lighting.
Lighting Control Systems - For Security
There are real security advantages to automated lighting, from external or internal lights being triggered by movement up to very latest systems that replicate the exact lighting pattern of the previous two weeks if you go away - far more realistic than using a plug-in timer switch or simple dusk to dawn sensor. Lighting can be integrated with the home's security functions so that all of the house lights and exterior lights come on if the burglar alarm is triggered. This is often enough to deter a possible intruder.
Remote Control Lighting
Basic remote control light switches are commonly available, but true remote control lighting makes it possible to turn lights on an off from anywhere. Controlling lighting in outbuildings, or even in a property in another country is possible with the use of web based control systems. These systems are great for those with larger homes, multiple outbuildings or holiday homes.
Advanced Lighting for Assisted Living and Individuals with Disabilities
Remote control lighting systems are also ideal for those with limited mobility, as it can be operated from a central control point. This would allow you to enable lighting for visitors, or to make navigating the house easier for those in wheelchairs. A combination of hand held controls, wall mounted panels and automatic sensors can make life more comfortable.
Energy Efficient Lighting
By combining the latest low energy bulbs with automatic light controls, considerable energy savings can be achieved. One of the primary means of doing this is using sensors that will automatically respond to your presence. This means that lights in rooms that are not being used can be dimmed or turned off automatically, but will come back as soon as they are required. This will give better lighting where it is needed, but save power where it is not, and is ideal for families with children who tend to leave lights on all the time!
There are considerable benefits now available with automated lighting systems, and the equipment has become affordable to average home owners as the cost decreases.
