What’s So Smart About Intelligent Lighting?

Are you focusing on lighting the way you should be? Lighting is critical for productivity, safety and comfort. Despite the importance of lighting, many organizations fail to make the best use of this vital resource. Intelligent controls not only save energy but can also provide you with the data you need to reduce operating costs and improve your facility.

Intelligent Controls Make Lighting Smarter

Lighting controls have been around for years, but today's intelligent systems have common features setting them apart, including adaptability, measurement and communication.

Adaptability. When integrated with controls, LED fixtures with built-in daylight and motion sensors are able to adjust to the changing environment. Daylight sensors detect the amount of natural light available, dimming or turning off fixtures appropriately. Motion sensors automatically switch off lights when no one is present. Programmable controls in lights with color tuning ability allow for a higher color temperature in the morning and lower color temperature in the afternoon to better match people's circadian rhythms.

Measurement. Integrated power metering tracks the energy use of each fixture, allowing you to assess lighting energy performance for specific areas or from an overall system perspective. Information about variation in energy use of individual fixtures can signal the need for repair or replacement, helping reduce operating and maintenance costs.

Communication. Networking lights together makes the whole system smarter, allowing fixtures to communicate with each other and a central controller. While individual intelligent fixtures are pre-programmed and limited in capabilities, networking offers an expanded set of functions, such as remote sensing, emergency control, tracking and reporting.

Stay alert and you can use all of this lighting data to make your facility work better for you. For example, retailers could use data from motion sensors to determine which areas of the store have the most traffic. They could then redesign the store to feature the most popular merchandise in high-traffic areas. Make sure your controls are listed in DesignLights Consortium's Networked Lighting Controls Qualified Products List.

LEDs: The Brightest Light

LEDs are a hot new technology, providing high quality and energy-efficient illumination. Among their many benefits are:
•    Lower energy costs. LEDs are very efficient, and the directional nature of their light output focuses light exactly where it's needed, saving more energy by reducing the number of fixtures.
•    Reduced maintenance costs. LEDs have an average rated life of up to 50,000 hours or more, far longer than most conventional lights. This minimizes replacement and maintenance costs.
•    Durability. Made from solid-state materials, LEDs are resistant to vibration and difficult to break, making them useful for outdoor lighting, parking garages and other rugged environments.

LEDs have two additional attributes that make them a perfect fit for intelligent control: dimmability and instant-on. Fluorescent and high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps have a long warm-up time or a restrike time delay. In contrast, LED lamps start almost instantaneously and have no such delay. Fluorescent and HID lamps typically have a limited dimming range, while LED products are inherently dimmable.

Consider upgrading your facility with LED lighting and integrating them with intelligent controls. It's the smart way to save.