Lighting control systems like Lutron HomeWorks can integrate seamlessly into a wider control system while presenting a simple user interface for whole house audio, whole house control or control of blinds and curtains. Systems integration means that different aspects of your smart home can be controlled in one place on a number of devices: touchscreens, smartphones and tablets. smart speakers, remote cotrols.
Smart home technology needn't (and shouldn't) be complicated.
The Lutron seeTouch keypad shown here is an example of simple system integration involving disparate systems. The keypad is at one of four entrances to a large dining room. The right-hand column of buttons allows the owners to select one of four lighting scenes, dim the lights up and down and turn the lights off. The left-hand column controls the multiroom audio system. The top button selects the DAB radio invariably tuned to BBC Radio 4. The named buttons play whatever is on the respective owners digital music player channel; if nothing is playing, it plays their default Internet radio stations.
There are a number of systems invovled there: Lutron, Control4, A DAB radio and a digital streaming platform but the owners see none of that. The integration sits away in a rack using properly tested components and code. Systems integration should be simple, predictable and reliable.
Apps are available for most of the lighting control systems and lighting controls are frequently integrated into the wider whole house control apps such as Control4, Crestron or Savant. At their most simple they replicate the layout and controls of the wall-mounted keypads but that functionality isn’t all that useful. Who wants to fish in their pocket to grab their phone to turn a room’s light on and off?
Things get much more useful when the app is doing something that a keypad can’t do. One example is the ability to edit the behaviour of lighting scenes and save them. Editing scenes used to require an engineer armed with a laptop and the programming software used to set-up the system. Now, it can be done by the homeowner with an iPad. That’s a major and very welcome development.
Some people find the idea of using their phone or iPad to control their lighting intimidating. For every technology fiend who comes into our showroom fired up by the idea of controlling everything from their phone we probably see another dozen who find it really off-putting. That’s why we stress that tablet and phone control is a really useful add-on to wall keypads NOT a replacement for them. Viewed as an additional way to control your lights they make a lot more sense.
The Lutron app lets you control the whole house. It gives you control over every keypad and even brings all your most used commands – “Whole house off”, “Security Mode on” together onto one screen along with heating monitoring and control. It’s smart, simple to use and adds an extra dimension to your lighting control. Most importantly, you the homeowner can change things yourself without calling out a technician.
On that last point, the same technical architecture that allows the app to work and apps to communicate with other apps also makes remote maintenance much more practical. That gives us more remote maintenance capability. It's not something we need often, but it's reassuring to know we have it if required.
