Understanding How Smart LED Solutions Work

Posted by on Jan 9, 2015 in Blogs, LED Lighting, Smart Lighting | Comments Off on Understanding How Smart LED Solutions Work

Understanding How Smart LED Solutions Work

Do you often forget to switch the lights off? Between the growing popularity of greener technology and the plain intelligence of using less expensive resources, smart LED solutions are fast becoming the best choice for new installations as well as business retrofits for all types of lighting. Much more than just plain LED retrofits, smart LED solutions are a complete system designed to manage lighting in your building, giving you the optimum in visibility along with the lowest possible energy costs. Smart LED lights are made up of a tripod of newer technologies, each of which relies on the other two to create the optimum method of energy usage.

Smart LED Lights

The main leg of the smart solutions tripod is the LED light bulbs themselves. LED retrofits themselves can save you extraordinary amounts of money on your energy bill. In general, they use 80 percent less energy than traditional light bulbs and, unlike short-life incandescents, LED bulbs last 25,000 to 50,000 hours. This means double savings, as you won’t have to replace your bulbs every couple of months like in a traditional lighting situation. Add to that the lack of frustration you’ll feel by knowing your bulbs won’t burn out exactly when you need them the most, and smart LED lights look more intelligent all the time.

Occupancy Sensors

Human beings are forgetful, and more energy is wasted through forgetting to turn off the lights than just about any other cause. Occupancy sensors seek to solve this problem by noticing when people are in a room and when they’ve left. Motion sensors are the most common method of telling when a person is in a room, and smart systems make use of them in almost every model. This doesn’t cover every situation, though, since people tend to sit still when watching television, reading books, or doing crafts and hobbies. To make up for this shortcoming in the motion sensors, advanced smart systems also include heat sensors to test when a live human body is in the vicinity. They can be set for different size beings so your cat doesn’t set off your lights all night long, but they still won’t turn off your reading light just as you’re getting to the most exciting part of your book. Knowing your smart LED lights will always be on, except when you don’t need them any more, is a touch of the future that can save you money today.

Daylighting Controls

Turning lights on and off depending on whether people are in the room is a great way to save money, but there are still times of the day when it makes no sense to turn on the lights at all. In the middle of the day in a room with plenty of windows, there’s no need to any type of lights to burn. On the other hand, in a room with one small window that faces east, evening might be a good time to start turning on some of the lamps. Daylighting controls have sensors that detect the amount of light already naturally in a room, then decides how much more artificial light is needed for normal human activities. Often attached to dimmers, this crucial part of a smart LED lighting system gradually adds light throughout the day as the room gets dimmer, and turns the lights off when the sun shines through the window.

Savings

While the savings found from using smart LED lights is significant, having a licensed, professional electrician install a smart LED solutions package in your home or business has the power to save almost 90 percent of the total energy usage formally found every month. Not only is this good business, as it saves a significant amount of money, it’s good for the environment because of the much smaller carbon footprint your building will leave.