With our home automation kit, each room has a number of lighting circuits. These circuits can then be turned on and off independently. In addition, some of the circuits can be dimmed (as long as they are connected to a central dimmer unit).
Some areas of the house have been fairly straightforward to sort out. Others are more complex. The kitchen is a good example of where there are multiple lighting circuits – gone are the days when there just used to be a fluorescent strip in the middle of the ceiling!
We are just sorting out all of the lighting in the kitchen and I am amazed to find that we have a total of 8 lighting circuits here.
- Wall lights – small rectangular lights shining up and down on the reclaimed stone;
- 2 sets of suspended wire lights – each with 4 x 5w bulbs. The two strips are controlled independently;
- 4 x LEDs under the breakfast bar;
- 7 x LEDs along the canopy of the tall kitchen units;
- 2 downlighters in the square window that separates the lounge and the kitchen;
- an pendant light in the tall window;
- And finally, there is a LED strip underneath the plinth of the main units. This is DMX controlled and we will be able to change the colour and the intensity (brightness) of the LED strip.
However, we don’t need 8 switches to control 8 lights (although you could if you really wanted to!). With the Loxone system, we can define scenes. A scene is a predefined set of lights. So for example, you might define an “eating” scene or a “cooking” scene. Each of these scenes might use a different combination of lights. Some of this we are going to have to set once we are living in the property. The scenes should also be set when it is dark as lighting looks completely different in daylight.
These are Collingwood lights. There are four along this wall. 1w up and 1w down. We have used the same lights in the parapet wall in the hallway so that they line up. These lights are hardly noticeable when they are not on.
Suspended wire lighting from SLV. This all runs on 12v and we can put up to 6 lights onto each pair of wires. Currently we have 4 on each.
These LED lights were installed underneath the worktop of the breakfast bar when the kitchen units were installed. Although installed by the kitchen fitters, these too are controlled by the Loxone kit.
Saxby LED downlights. These are IP65 rated and could be used outdoors. These are the same lights that we have used in the bathrooms elsewhere in the property. Each of the lights is 1w.
These two downlighters are in the square “window” between the kitchen and the lounge. They need to be pushed back up into the holes, but have been left down while the decorators are still working in this area.
A straightforward pendant light. There will be a piece of artwork here in the long term.