Our Lighting Control Systems Guide

A control system for residential and commercial projects is the perfect way to manage your lighting and other aspects of your home and building on one interface. Turn your home into a smart home.

What do lighting control systems do and how do they work?

A lighting control system can simply control your lights for one room to a whole house or more advanced systems can also control blinds, music and so much more on a single end user interface.

A control system can range from a single/multiple circuit solution to a whole house fully integrated system allowing simple robust control from a scene setting keypad, application on phone/tablet through to voice control.

See below a handy sketch from Rako showing how their wireless system can be utilised:

What are the advantages of using a control system?

There are many advantages of using a control system including:-

• Seamlessly switch lights on and off, open/close curtains or blinds, turn on your heating and music all at a touch of a button and/or on an easy to use app allowing for global scenes to switch the whole house on or off as you enter or leave
• Switch any circuit from any location
• Holiday modes
• Time clock control
• Turn lights automatically on when you walk into a room with a PIR system
• Create moods with your lighting perfect for daytime, reading, watching television and entertaining
• Customise the scenes to make the most out of your open plan space
• Save energy by only have lights on when you need them
• Use an app to control the lights whilst you are away from your home or office

Below showcases how a control system was used to control the lights to create different moods; from no lights to a day time feel then an evening mood and party mood to late at night whilst you are sitting in the living room space.

Where can I use a control system?

You can use a control system in a house, boat, one room, whole building, hotel, everywhere. It is not limited to a certain type of room or building as it can be simply a switch for one room to a more bespoke system for multiple rooms, open plan living spaces, buildings, etc.

Below shows examples of how lighting on a control system can be used to create different moods:

What different control systems are there?

We categorise our lighting controls into four categories; standalone, single room, multi room and whole house/building.

Check out this handy video from Rako showcasing how a control system can be used throughout the house: Whole House Control System.

See below a variety of the control systems that we offer:

Many of the above can be used in multiple circumstances.

What are the different types of dimmers?

There are 5 different types of dimming systems:

• Phase dimming: used with decorative lighting.
• Dimming via 0-10V/1-10V: used with LED architectural lights, for example downlights, spotlights, etc. Good dimming range.
• DALI dimming: used with LED architectural lights, for example downlights, spotlights, etc. Very wide dimming range.
• DMX: used with RGB lights.
• Switch / Non-dim: used with lights that will not be dimmed.

For more information on lighting control systems give us a call on +44 (0)20 7371 9000 for UK and Europe or +971 (0) 4 554 0488 for UAE and Asia.