Why Tunable Lighting is So Important for Your Next Project

As an architect, you know that how a home looks and feels has everything to do with what potential buyers see in it. A home’s appearance can be a make or break factor – and you make it your goal to create a space that is both inviting and aesthetically pleasing.

Lighting can play an important role in a home’s design and architecture. One fixture can change the entire mood of a room or exterior! So it’s imperative that you bring only the best home lighting solutions to your Honolulu, HI home projects. But what about lighting that goes beyond creating a bright and beautiful atmosphere?

Circadian lighting aims to bolster homeowners’ physical and mental health, while still illuminating your space’s décor. In this blog, we’ll dive into what this circadian lighting is exactly – and how it can benefit your next project by setting up a space any homeowner would like to call their own.

What is Circadian Lighting?

Circadian lighting’s definition starts in its name! The purpose of circadian lighting is to help balance the homeowner’s circadian rhythm day in and day out. Your circadian rhythm keeps you feeling good and ready to face the day, both mentally and physically. When it’s thrown off balance, you’ll notice that you start to feel sluggish and run down.

Work with PAC Hawaii on your next residential lighting design project in Maui for a better, cheaper, and faster installation

It’s no secret that homeowners increasingly view home automation systems as must-have features instead of nice extras. If you’re a developer or interior designer and you aren’t including smart security systems, whole home audio/video and similar elements in your work, you’re missing out on a substantial source of revenue.

One automation system many homeowners request is lighting control. It’s easy to see why: the convenience, aesthetic benefits and efficiency gains offered by lighting control systems make them extremely attractive. But these systems can be difficult to set up, as they often require specialized knowledge and a unique blend of skills your standard electrician doesn’t have.

That’s why you want an experienced technology integrator like Pacific Audio & Communications by your side on your next project. Today we’ll walk you through all the benefits of hiring PAC Hawaii for your upcoming residential lighting design projects in Maui, HI, whether you’re building a new home or doing a renovation.

SEE ALSO: Interior Designers’ New Best Friend: Home Lighting Control

SAVE MONEY

Time is money in any industry, and it’s particularly true in the home-building business. Whether you’re on a new construction project or a retrofit, you want to avoid costly last-minute changes. You don’t want to be ripping out drywall in a nearly finished home because a design element wasn’t accounted for, a fixture was installed incorrectly or something is off with the wiring.

Improve Your Home’s Style, Security and Efficiency with Solutions from Lutron

Few home automation systems offer as many benefits as quickly as automated lighting and shades. With these systems in place, you get one-touch control over all your home’s fixtures and shades, letting you customize your lighting in new, exciting ways while also improving your energy efficiency.

If you’re unfamiliar with the nuances of lighting control and motorized shades, it may be difficult to know where to start. As a Lutron dealer, Pacific Audio and Communications has the perfect system for the lights and shades in your Kailua-Kona, HI home. In this blog, we’ll walk you through some of Lutron’s premier automation solutions.

SEE ALSO: Want to Enjoy the Summer Nights? Landscape Lighting Can Help

Lighting Control

Lutron lighting control systems offer many aesthetic and convenience benefits. For example, your system can automatically turn off all your lights when you leave for work every morning and then turn them back on once it detects you near your front door. You can also simplify your daily routines with automated schedules. Your lights will gradually get brighter in the morning when it’s time to wake up and then slowly dim in the evening when it’s time for bed. Finally, you can design lighting scenes for different occasions, using dimmers to create striking new combinations of color and shadow.

Lutron’s wireless solutions make centralized control over all your fixtures simple. Their RadioRA 2 system can support up to 200 devices, so you can start small and build out or jump right in if you’re feeling bold. For larger projects, the HomeWorksQS system supports up to 10,000 devices and gives you integrated control with Lutron smart thermostats.

How Home Networking Impacts System Performance
Picture this: you’ve just gotten home from a long day at the office. You pull up to your driveway in Oahu, HI, walk into your house and sit down in a comfortable media room ready to watch a little Thursday Night Football. But when you try to turn on your AV system, you notice it takes a little while longer than normal. And the signal – normally crisp, beautiful high-definition, is lagging and pixelated. Eventually, you don’t get a signal at all. Why is this happening? The answer may be out of date home networking. If you want to avoid this type of situation, keep reading.



See Also: How to Keep Your Smart Home Running Smoothly
What Is the Home Network?
Let’s start by answering a simple question: what do we mean by network? It’s essentially the backbone of your smart automation system.

It’s the internet signal that connects every device in your home. It facilitates communication between your smart lights and shades, each component of your AV system and any smart security and surveillance gear integrated in your smart system.

The primary concern of home networking – at least from a user’s perspective – is bandwidth. If you think of it like a highway, bandwidth is like the lanes on the highway.

The more devices in your system you have, the more information you need to move through your network. That means you’ll need higher bandwidth, or more lanes on the highway.

If you don’t have enough lanes, you could suffer a traffic jam.

And, of course, if you get a traffic jam you could suffer signal lag or blackouts. That could mean anything from an unresponsive lighting system to missing the second half of the Thursday Night Football game.

What to Do About a Slow Network 
Before we get to what you should do, here’s what you shouldn’t do. Don’t trust your ISP for network advice, and don’t assume raising your broadband plan will solve the problem.

Many homeowners will run a speed test through their ISP. Unfortunately, that only tells you how fast the signal is on their end. It won’t tell you much about what’s going on in your home.

Of course, there are times when all you need to do is increase your service plan. But if your network stops working after a long period of perfect signal, that’s probably not the problem.

Instead, it’s time to focus on what’s going on inside your home. A common problem can stem from out-of-date cabling throughout your spaces.

As we move closer to a total 4K Ultra HD takeover, more information is being passed between devices than ever before. That means it may be time to upgrade to fiber-optic, HDBaseT and HDMI 2.0 cabling for your AV gear.

Other common problems include changes in device configuration and easy-to-make user errors.

So what’s the easiest thing to do about network downtime? Consult a professional of course!

At Pacific Audio and Communications, we make your smart home run better. Contact us today for a free, no obligation consultation about your home networking performance.

You’re just one click away.

Contact Us

• Save Energy with Timers
• Harness Sunlight with Sensors
• Adjust Lighting Levels with Dimmers

Enhance Oahu Home Design with Smart Lighting

Any interior designer knows the importance of having proper lighting in each room to illuminate the artwork, décor, and other design elements throughout the space. However, not every designer knows about the versatility that comes from implementing a home lighting control system in that space. We work with interior designers, architects, and homeowners throughout the Oahu, HI area to create a seamless lighting design that enhances the architecture and décor of the home.

To learn how you can use home lighting control technology to present home décor at its best, read on.

Timers

Timers ensure that the home’s décor is well lit with no extra effort for the homeowner.

• Perfect Timing: A home’s lights should be tailored to the lifestyle of the homeowner. Use timers to automatically turn lights on and off at the times that make sense for each room.
• Energy Savings: Timers save on energy costs by only lighting areas when they are needed.
• An Automatic Process: Homeowners don’t want to waste time walking into each room to turn the lights on during the day and then off again at night. Timers avoid that manual hassle.

Sensors

Make the lighting throughout the home react intelligently to certain trigger events.

• Occupancy Sensors: Keeping spotlights lit up throughout the home can be wasteful, spending excessive amounts of energy when nobody is there to admire the artwork or sculpture being illuminated. Occupancy sensors solve this problem by turning on lights whenever someone enters the room, then automatically turns off the lights after everyone leaves.
• Daylight Sensors: A daylight sensor detects how much sunlight is entering the room. On sunny days when the room is well lit, the sensor can automatically cause the dimmers in the room to lower the amount of artificial light to keep the room from being washed out with brightness. As the sun starts setting, the lights will brighten to ensure the room always has just the right lighting levels.

Dimmers

Dimmers allow interior designers to set the perfect lighting levels throughout the day for each space and activity.

• Time of Day: Using dimmers and timers together, the lighting levels can adjust from morning to afternoon to evening.
• Room: For interior rooms without much sunlight, the dimmers will keep rooms bright, but in rooms with windows, the dimmers will adjust to save energy by harvesting natural light.
• Activity: Most rooms have multiple purposes, so the lighting designer can create “scenes” for each occasion that optimize the room’s lighting for that specific activity, such as enjoying a candlelit dinner or reading a book on the sofa.

 
These three home lighting control technologies are just the tip of the iceberg of how smart home automation can enhance interior design.  Contact Pacific Audio and Communications to learn more about our process for working with interior designers to optimize lighting in the Oahu area.