Lighting

[nxr]

Hello, working on new house with about 40 dimmers or so and trying to decide whether better to have the lighting on a centralized panel or have it as hidden banks of dimmers in a couple of locations. Any views on how best to approach this?

[RyanE]

Hidden banks of dimmers is a hack that was used before centralized dimmers were available from Control4.

It is not recommended now that there are better alternatives.

RyanE

[South Africa C4 user]

4 hours ago, RyanE said:

Hidden banks of dimmers is a hack that was used before centralized dimmers were available from Control4.

It is not recommended now that there are better alternatives.

RyanE

This!

I have both at 2 different houses and centralised lighting is much better

[wnpublic]

10 hours ago, nxr said:

Hello, working on new house with about 40 dimmers or so and trying to decide whether better to have the lighting on a centralized panel or have it as hidden banks of dimmers in a couple of locations. Any views on how best to approach this?

Better be sure you love C4, because there’s no easy way back if you do this. 

[nxr]

Other than it is a more elegant way to do it, why is it better? Would it be faster and / or less expensive?

[RyanE]

Just now, wnpublic said:

Better be sure you love C4, because there’s no easy way back if you do this. 

The nice thing about Control4 is that if you are wary of installing Control4 centralized lighting, Control4 does support Lutron lighting as well.  There are a few things that it doesn't support natively as well (complicated lighting scenes, for example), but it is always an alternative.

Another thing to consider: Even if you were to decide you didn't want to use Control4 for everything but the centralized lighting, you can still use wired keypads to control scenes, loads, etc. with the Control4 system without having a full Control4 installation.  In that case, it turns into something more along the lines of a Lutron installation.

Lastly, regardless of the centralized lighting you install, I would recommend you always install some hardwired keypads in convenient locations, to ensure that you have control even if the Control4 system is unavailable.

It's certainly a more elegant way (the electrical wiring is much more planned / organized), it's not really any faster or less expensive.  If you were concerned about expense and wanted to "do it right", I personally would recommend you use centralized lighting for all your main lighting needs, and use something more of the budget lines in places like closets, laundry rooms, pantries, garage, etc., so you can still control them, but they're less expensive loads.  Personally, I would only care about the wall acne (too many gang dimmers in a row) in locations that are fairly public.  The advantage to that is that you then also have better Zigbee coverage for other Zigbee devices.  If you do full centralized, and use zigbee remotes or motions, etc., you would need to add some routing (hardwired like dimmers) nodes anyway.

Keep in mind, I'm not an electrician, and I'm certainly biased, as I'm an employee... 

RyanE

[Matt Lowe]

2 hours ago, wnpublic said:

Better be sure you love C4, because there’s no easy way back if you do this. 

Both of the lighting systems are standard lighting connections and can be easily retrofitted with any major lighting system out there. Maybe if you went all wireless lighting it would make you have less mechanical options but plenty of wireless solutions as well. What makes you think its would be hard to retrofit. And also lighting is simple essentially once its installed it nearly infinitely customizable on the consumer end with no dealer intervention needed so even if you got rid of control4 for the rest of the automation the lighting will still continue to work as it was orginally installed.

 

My vote would also be for centralized lighting. its much more versatile and a cleaner look. It does cost but you save in other ways.

[wnpublic]

2 minutes ago, Matt Lowe said:

 What makes you think its would be hard to retrofit.

Ripping out and replacing panelized lighting does not qualify to me as an "easy way back."  Nor does the prospect of keeping C4 around and using it only for lighting.  By design, it doesn't want to talk to anything else.  If OP is going to do it, at least pick the Lutron system for that reason, there is an API through which other things can talk to it.

 

17 minutes ago, Matt Lowe said:

It does cost but you save in other ways.

Do tell.

[nxr]

Thanks - i do plan on just using regular dimmers in the non common areas and I am debating between going with Lutron or C4 for the lighting. I have lived with another install that had C4 for control and Lutron for lighting (with dimmers bunched in closets) and it worked well. I’m going with third party keypads anyway this time (not palladium, which is why I chose Lutron that time vs C4) so revisiting the issue. 

[Matt Lowe]

2 hours ago, wnpublic said:

Ripping out and replacing panelized lighting does not qualify to me as an "easy way back."  Nor does the prospect of keeping C4 around and using it only for lighting.  By design, it doesn't want to talk to anything else.  If OP is going to do it, at least pick the Lutron system for that reason, there is an API through which other things can talk to it.

 

Do tell.

ripping out any centralized system would not be an easy way back but once you have it many do not want to go back anyways. Standard home electrical wiring is not perfect by any means. It saves you in eliminating a large bank of switches on the wall, especially in large open-concept spaces. Do you want one switch or ten on the wall? Electrical wiring for the home can also be safer reducing the current traveling on the wiring across an entire circuit. C4 also has api to interface with and plenty of products do so.

[Matt Lowe]

2 hours ago, nxr said:

Thanks - i do plan on just using regular dimmers in the non common areas and I am debating between going with Lutron or C4 for the lighting. I have lived with another install that had C4 for control and Lutron for lighting (with dimmers bunched in closets) and it worked well. I’m going with third party keypads anyway this time (not palladium, which is why I chose Lutron that time vs C4) so revisiting the issue. 

check out the essential line of C4 dimmers this can make it more affordable to cover areas that are less trafficked or unimportant, but still, give you full control of all of the lighting in your home.

[msgreenf]

53 minutes ago, Matt Lowe said:

check out the essential line of C4 dimmers this can make it more affordable to cover areas that are less trafficked or unimportant, but still, give you full control of all of the lighting in your home.

But understand the limitations of essential too

[Control4Savant]

 

3 hours ago, nxr said:

Thanks - i do plan on just using regular dimmers in the non common areas and I am debating between going with Lutron or C4 for the lighting. I have lived with another install that had C4 for control and Lutron for lighting (with dimmers bunched in closets) and it worked well. I’m going with third party keypads anyway this time (not palladium, which is why I chose Lutron that time vs C4) so revisiting the issue. 

I suggest you do Lutron. They have a variety of lines and budgets including panelized. You can even mix them seamlessly if you have a central system like Control4. It keeps you fully compatible but agnostic to whatever central home system you choose to ever have. You can use those proprietary C4 keypads for scene and other system controls. 

[Cyknight]

10 hours ago, wnpublic said:

ripping out and replacing panelized lighting does not qualify to me as an "easy way back." 

As opposed to hidden dimmers in a closet? I would say so. Be it Lutron or C4 or most others, it's all DIN rail panels - changing from one to the other really isn't a difficult thing. Not cheap as non of these systems are truly cheap, but not a difficult task as such.

[Andrew luecke]

Stick to a centralised system if you have the option for the loads (even Shelly are doing centralised modules now for relays at least, and C4 has their own centralised lighting modules too).

For keypads less important that it's centralised honestly (and depends on the job), but centralised isn't a bad thing (less risk of interference, provided the cabling is run correctly). The advantage of Centralised is that its easier to fault find, and upgrade. The disadvantage, is that 1 fault could potentially affect a lot more devices

Also depends on other factors such as the country, and what your installer is familiar with. You're best off using the system your integrator recommends.

 

Everyone will have an opinion about what lighting product to use, but it might not be the right choice for you.  It also depends what cabling you have run too, and how your house is constructed. If its concrete for instance, I'd be a bit hesitant to use Zigbee keypads personally for control, and would instead be using wired (in concrete houses, you practically need Wifi AP's in every room). Similarly, in a high rise apartment, there are other factors (like interference)

[RAV]

Also depends on how many lights per room.

For a 'typical' home, if you place a KD120 at each doorway, and wire it to a main room light, two at the entry doors for an inside and outside keypad arrangement.
Then review what you have left, maybe 10-15 'accent' and landscape lights, which you can then use panelized lighting for.
This way you have fallback, you have keypads where you need them, and you have zigbee coverage.