Perfect Lighting for the Perfect Interior

You make a significant investments in soft furnishings and interiors. Bland one dimensional lighting doesn't do this justice.
Multi-layered lighting can make the most of your interiors.By organizing your lighting as a group of scenes you can set a
group of lights into your room simply by the press of a single button rather than an array of buzzing dimmer switches.

Think Activities not Lights

Adding layers of lighting to your rooms using ceiling, wall, table and standard lamps may seem complicated. But in most rooms the scenes correspond to a few activities, watch TV, reading, listening to music etc.

Think Outside of the Room.

Traditionally light switches have only controlled the lights within a room. With lighting control you can have a switch by the bed that sets the house into night mode with all main areas switched off and low level lighting in corridors.

Automate

Movement sensors can switch lights on as you enter rooms, especially useful for guests or the elderly.

Integrate

Switches don't just have to control lights, control your music or heating from the same keypad.

Principles of Lighting Design

The secret to good lighting design is to think of the five major areas of lighting that are required in each room. You must also consider Kinetic Lighting ,this is the light from a fireplace, candles or even a TV screen that will add to the lighting scene.

* Ambient Lighting

This is the main general lighting in the room, this could be downlights, a pendant or concealed coving lighting.

* Accent Lighting

This is the lighting used to highlight a particular object or architectural feature. A picture light is an obvious example.

* Decorative Lighting

Light fittings that are decorative in their own right; statement pieces. Modern pieces or traditional table lamps.

* Layering

Successful lighting design uses each of these types of lighting in layers to create the overall effect.

* Task Lighting

This is the lighting you might need in a living room to read with, the shadow free under cabinet lights in your kitchen or the lamp on your desk.

Lighting controls systems can really enhance good lighting making the subtleties and impact of the design easy to access. Lighting schemes frequently use a number of individual lighting circuits which together create an overall effect. The intensity of the different circuits, the speed of dimming, even the colour of the light can combine to give magical lighting effects. Lighting control systems take away the complexity of the elements involved allowing users to access different pre-programmed lighting "scenes".

Other Applications

There are many other applications. Lighting controls can replace large arrays of manual dimmer switches and provide one button access to pre-programmed scenes for eating, reading, entertaining.

"Avenues" of light can be created for the night time
Multiple rooms or even whole house lighting schemes can be integrated. With systems allowing the user to turn off the whole house with one button and the convenience of remote controls, it is possible to lie in bed and switch off all lights in the house with a simple remote control.

Security

Lighting can be integrated into security schemes with lighting mimicking an occupied house. Again this can be programmed to be more convincing than a simple timer operated system. With some systems it is possible to "record" normal occupancy and play that back when required.

We'd summarize the benefits of lighting controls systems as offering:
Ease of use
Quality feel
Convenience

Degree of Reluctance

One thing we admit here is that it's initially difficult for many people to see the application of lighting control systems in the home. People are worried by the thought of major rewiring exercises and the cost. It's also difficult to visualize the effects for a lighting scheme that doesn't yet exist. Yet those of our clients who have followed down this route are now fierce advocates of these systems. Our favorite quote?

The Future

Maybe that last example points to the future of lighting control systems in the home. Wireless technologies will increasingly provide the benefits of lighting control without the necessity of major rewiring scehmes simply to add controls. On new build or major rennovations lighting control can be factored in at the start of a project - there are fantastic wired systems that we will continue to use because of their power and flexibility.