Why is den lighting so important?
Den lighting design sets the mood and adds comfort and quality to all activities conducted there. Large, dark rooms appear less attractive, and even intimidating in some cases, to guests. How you plan good lighting in the den opens up the room to conversation and activities. It can also function as a part of more advanced home entertainment such as home theater.
What does den lighting control add to personal use of my den?
Den lighting control allows you to create the desired mood or necessary level of light that the occasion requires. Dens are multi-functional rooms, and adding lighting controls allows you to call up different lighting themes and make fine-tuned adjustments to separate elements of room lighting. You can raise or lower general lighting at will based on the nature of the gathering and the number of people in attendance. You can also adjust accent lights for home entertainment such as music or movie watching for designing lighting in high end homes.
Can den lighting be sequenced with other home features?
Yes, your whole house audio system would be an example as your lighting themes can mimic the rhythm of your musical selections. If you are watching movies, you do not want to do it in total darkness. You need some lighting to allow people to get up and move around if necessary. Den lighting controls can be automated to bring the general room lighting down and turn on accent lights in the room that function like the theater lights in cinema. The same controls can also be programmed to close window blinds and other items.
When are wall box dimmer switches advisable?
Wall box dimmers are either rotary or sliding switches that replace flip switches. Dimmer switches are advisable when more light is needed for overall comfort of a large group and less light for a smaller group to feel more intimate. A wide variety of decorative wall box dimmers is available to match the interior lighting themes of your den and to make it convenient to adjust the lighting instantly when you enter the room.
Doesn't getting up to adjust the wall box dimmer distract and disrupt the mood of the occasion especially if done several times?
Wall box dimmers are only one option in home lighting control. Wireless remotes can be connected to a lighting control or home automation network that allow you to control your den lighting just like you control your television and whole house audio.
Can I install the lighting control system in my den?
It’s not a good idea. The installation of automation and lighting control systems should be done by a licensed home automation contractor with experience in lighting control technology. It also helps to use a company like ILD that has knowledge of interior home design lighting and interior home architecture. This will ensure the system installed works safely and can systematically integrate as much of your home’s functionality as possible.
Illuminations Lighting Design is the only “One Stop” destination for lighting design, engineering, landscape lighting services and installation in the state of Texas, and remains unrivaled by any lighting firm in the United States for lighting that is art. As homes grow larger and needs become more complex, having a single resource provides home owners with peace of mind. This translates into a smoother process, reduced costs and a better product.
We are located in Houston Texas but provide lighting and house lighting plans in Austin TX, El Paso Texas, San Antonio TX, College Station Texas, Beaumont TX, Dallas Texas, Midland Tx and points beyond.Labels: Architectural Lighting Houston Texas, Lutron Homeworks Lighting Controls, Residential Lighting Control Systems, Vantage lighting controls
Lutron manufactures two major lines of home lighting controls designed to control lighting at the individual room level. Lutron also engineers whole house lighting control systems, which we will deal with in a separate article on our site. Today’s article focuses only on the two most prominent lighting controls for homes: the Spacer System home light control designed for multiple lighting scene selection, and the GRAFIK Eye preset home light control. Lutron home light control is intended to reflect personal ideals, lifestyle habits, and home entertainment activities, and they are intended to seamlessly integrate into the interior architecture of even the most custom homes.
Spacer System
The Spacer System provides the advantage of home lighting control through an infrared remote unit that manipulates several lighting circuits linked in tandem by a wireless master controller. Because it takes a “less is more” approach to equipment in general, it represents an excellent retrofit option for homeowners on a budget, because Spacer System home lighting control dimmers can replace existing dimmers and communicate via the wireless master controller.
Spacer System dimmers can control the lighting levels of any and all fixtures in the room, including ceiling lights, accent lights, table lights, and floor lamps. You can create any particular scene appropriate to the master bedroom, den, home entertainment center, or master bath, and then save them in your controller. The system will store up to five lighting scenes per room, providing one-touch access to different levels of task lighting for activities, accent lighting for ambiance, or a subtle touch of both.
GRAFIK EYE
The Lutron GRAFIK Eye home light control system is designed to allow instant switchover to any number of preset lighting scenes. It is based on more advanced technology than the Spacer System ,and it is generally recommended for larger, custom houses and lighting control systems integrated with home automation networks, whole house audio, home security, and high-end home theaters. It also continues to gain momentum in the commercial lighting world, where it is becoming a polar source of boardroom lighting and hospitality lighting applications.
When an authorized Lutron Dealer such as ILD configures your GRAFIK Eye or Homeworks system, we subdivide the lighting circuits in the room to create “lighting zones.” This allows your home lighting control system to then turn certain lights on at full power and leave other lights only partially powered on, or not powered on at all. This variation in lighting intensity is the key to creating subtle and complex lighting effects and themes within a room. The intention in each case is to match areas of brightness and shadows to the pace and nature of activities transpiring in that room. This not works to facilitate the activity on a functional level, but it also helps create an emotional tone congruent to the activity itself.
To switch to a different lighting theme, simply press a button on your infrared remote, and your home automation control system will automatically go to the next scene. The GRAFIK Eye can also be programmed to do this automatically, manipulating both indoor and outdoor lights at various times of the day, evening, or night. You can automate it to turn lights on and off at different times of the evening, such as sun down or just after dark. This high level of control is beneficial to both home entertainment and home energy savings. Home Theater users rely on GRAFIK Eye home dimming controls to lower the shades and dim the lights when movie time rolls around. People who like to host parties find that varying the lights can create everything from relaxing ambience to intensity for games and lively conversation. To change the lighting theme, simply press a button on your infrared remote.
Call a Specialist to Help You Decide!
While these controls are designed for maximum user friendliness, it takes an authorized Lutron reseller like Illuminations Lighting Design to correctly design, install, and configure either system in today’s sophisticated residential space. Call 1-800-863-1184 for a free estimate on either one of these fantastic room-based home lighting control systems, and let one of our lighting control experts develop and install a system ideally tailored to your personal home, lifestyle, needs, and desires.
Illuminations Lighting Design is a full service design build firm specializing in residential and commercial indoor lighting and outdoor lighting, electrical service and maintenance as well as home automation, home theaters, emergency generators, surge protection systems, phone systems and lighting control systems.
We are located in Houston Texas but provide lighting and design services in Austin TX, El Paso Texas, San Antonio TX, College Station Texas, Beaumont TX, Dallas Texas, Midland Tx and points beyond. Call us today at 800-863-1184, visit our lighting blog or request a consultation online using our contact us form.Labels: Electrical contractor Houston Texas, Home Automation Lighting Systems, Home Lighting Controls, Lutron Dimmer Switches, Vantage lighting controls
Vantage Controls unveiled it's new tablet touch screen on March 29, 2006 and it is now available from Illuminations Lighting Design!
The state-of-the-art Vantage TouchPoint 1210 is a customizable tablet touch screen that provides definitive control of any automation project with the power of wireless communication. Anyone who uses the Vantage TouchPoint 1210 will enjoy complete room-to-room control of lights, security systems, music and more.
"The Vantage TouchPoint 1210 provides dealers with an easy integration solution," said Vantage Vice President of Sales Bob Long. "With its wide array of mounting options, this is truly the most versatile touch screen on the market. Its capabilities and design far surpass any competitive touch screen, making the TouchPoint 1210 by Vantage a logical choice for any of our dealers' projects."
Included on every Vantage TouchPoint 1210 will be InFusion Media 1.0, which will allow you to use custom designed interfaces easily developed in InFusion Design Center, and will control any device on the Vantage system.
This tablet touch screen offers amazing flexibility with in-wall, desk-top, VESA mount, kickstand and under-counter mounting possibilities. The Vantage TouchPoint 1210 has an ultra slim screen with a wide-angle view, and is available in 3 colors (white, silver and black) enhancing the look of any room.
The Vantage TouchPoint 1210 provides complete control of any project by not only controlling the lights, but also heating and cooling, fireplaces, distributed audio systems, video equipment, home theaters and window treatments. The TouchPoint 1210 provides room-to-room control, without the hassle of wires.
For additional information, materials or a quote on Vantage products, please contact David Smith at (800) 863-1184 or email
david@illuminationslighting.com.
See our advertisement in August issue of
Houston House & Home Magazine featuring our
Home Automation Department.
Labels: Energy Saving Lighting Control, Home Theater Lighting Control, Vantage lighting controls, Whole House Lighting Controls
Vantage Lighting Control Systems introduces the all new INFUSION SYSTEM. The Vantage InFusion Controller is unlike any other controller on the market today, opening the door to simple lighting control, as well as all aspects of automation. It boasts a built-in Ethernet jack, dramatically faster processor, six times more memory and a built-in USB port. The InFusion Controller is the most powerful automation controller on the market, featuring a dramatically faster processor, 80 times more memory, a built-in Ethernet jack and a USB port. It more than double's the capacity of Vantage's Q Controller, allowing for 120 available wired stations.
Vantage Lighting has long been a leader in lighting automation systems and innovation. Vantage has always found new ways to improve lighting control, and now with the InFusion controller, touch screens, the InFusion software and InFusion integration, Vantage is simplifying the entire automation experience like never before.
Check out these new InFusion features:
- Ethernet Enabled
- Built-in USB port
- 5 RS-232 ports
- D Memory Card
- 120 low voltage stations
- 300 available wireless stations
TouchPoint Touch Screens
Vantage's TouchPoint family - the TouchPoint 550, the TouchPoint 890HD and the TouchPoint 1210HD - are designed to simplify today's complicated control and automation applications. The TouchPoint touch screens put the finishing touches on any Vantage job.Vantage's TouchPoint family eliminates the need for outdated, wall-cluttering light switches and endless stacks of remote controls. They provide a simple, impressive way to control your automated home, office or building.
TouchPoint 550
The TouchPoint 550 is a color, active matrix LCD touch screen keypad with a backlit display. The quarter VGA LCD 5.5 inch diagonal display is small enough to keep the area from feeling cluttered but versatile enough to fulfill the needs of almost any application. It is available in handheld and in-wall versions.
TouchPoint 890HD and 1210HD
The TouchPoint family welcomed two new additions recently; the TouchPoint 890HD and the TouchPoint 1210HD. The new touch screens give users complete control of lights, audio and video, temperature and even offer Internet capabilities, while supporting streaming media and Web browsing, and are another control point when using the Lifeware solution family.
Check out these touch screen features:
- HDTV support
- 16:9 Widescreen format
- Stereo speakers and condenser microphone
- Automatic Touch-to-Wake power save mode for increased efficiency and energy savings
- Ambient light sensor automatically adjusts screen brightness acoording to room lighting
- Ultra-quiet, fan-driven flow through ventilation
A custom-designed touch overlay allows the maximum amount of the LCD's light image to pass through with reduced diffraction, making thse touch screens brighter than any competing LCD touch screens currently available.
InFusion Integration
Envision a home a home that automatically anticipates all of your needs. Just before going to bed, you roll over and touch the "Good Night" button, which turns on the motion activated outdoor lights, arms the security system, closes all the blinds and shades and gently fades off all the lights in the house. A networked home, office, boardroom or classroom can have a variety of subsystems, including window treatments, distributed audio and video, security, heating and air conditioning and lighting. InFusion brings them together in harmony, offering a third-party device library with easy drag-and-drop components, making integration of third-party solutions so much easier.
Distributed Audio
With InFusion you can control your personal music collection in every room of your home with nothing more than an elegant touch screen. Your music can also be effortlessly controlled through a handheld remote or wall-mounted control keypad.
Theater Control
Sitting in your home theater, you lightly press the button labeled "Movie" and the shades are drawn, the lights are dimmed, the projection system turns on along with the surround-sound system and the movie starts. InFusion manages all of today's technology and provides complete control to every system in your house.
Climate Control
InFusion integrates seamlessly with temperature controls as well. Always keep your home at your personal comfortable level. Set the house to start warming up just before you have to wake up, or automatically set temperatures back during the nighttime to save on your utility bill. You can even use outside weather information to control aspects of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning inside.
Security
Feel safe and protected in your house or office building by integrating a security system with InFusion. Security cameras can be simply integrated into a Vantage system with InFusion, making it easy for you to monitor your front door or driveway and know who's coming to your house. Incorporating a security system into your Vantage system has never been easier.
Window Treatments
InFusion can manage natural light. Motorized blinds, drapes, shades, shutters, awnings and even windows themselves, can be controlled with a touch of a button. Vantage systems have astronomical time clocks that track sunrise and sunset, so your environment can respond to sunlight year round. Now protect your sun-sensitive carpets, fabrics and artwork, plus maintain privacy and security, while continuing to enjoy the light and view when appropriate.
Illuminations Lighting Design is a full service design build firm specializing in residential and commercial indoor lighting and outdoor lighting installation, service and maintenance as well as home automation, home theaters and VANTAGE LIGHTING CONTROLS. Contact us at 800-863-1184 or on the web at
http://www.illuminationslighting.com/ for more information for lighting design and lighting control services.
Labels: Austin Lighting Control Systems, Houston Lighting Controls, Lutron Homeworks Lighting Controls, Vantage lighting controls
