Smart Home / Lighting Controls options

Jason Philip · May 16, 2018

Hi all, just curious as to know what are the preferred brands to use for smart home lighting packages. I use lutron and wattstopper in my job, these are both great but pretty pricy. but for residential re-wires, what brand can you recommend, good ones not junk. Thanks.

Leesparkykent · May 16, 2018

Jason Philip said:
Hi all, just curious as to know what are the preferred brands to use for smart home lighting packages. I use lutron and wattstopper in my job, these are both great but pretty pricy. but for residential re-wires, what brand can you recommend, good ones not junk. Thanks.

I've been installing lots of RAKO on higher end jobs as of late.

Moaz · May 16, 2018

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Jason Philip said:
Hi all, just curious as to know what are the preferred brands to use for smart home lighting packages. I use lutron and wattstopper in my job, these are both great but pretty pricy. but for residential re-wires, what brand can you recommend, good ones not junk. Thanks.

Never installed it but heard good things about Loxone and C-bus for residential.

DPG · May 16, 2018

The options available in the US market may be different to what's available in the UK.

Jason Philip · May 16, 2018

DPG said:
The options available in the US market may be different to what's available in the UK.

I'm interested in what's hot in UK, thanks.

DPG · May 16, 2018

No worries. I'm sure there will be some useful info for you.

Spoon · May 16, 2018

Jason Philip said:
I'm interested in what's hot in UK, thanks.

I'm pretty hot.... so the girls tell me.......... Ok, they don't... I'm going now...

sparksfly · May 16, 2018

Im not sure about wots hot but installed Fibaro (z-wave)although the customer set up the rest being a decent tech-head. Looked into the new lightwave stuff, although the switches looked nice they were not backwards compatible or flexible as the Fibaro set up.

cliffed · May 16, 2018

Just installing loxone,pricey but the top notch.

J.C.E · May 16, 2018

on the Loxone course in reading this week funny enough!
mostly config based course- although we are apprently touching wiring tomorrow (last day of 4)
- the config/ laptop side of thing is amazing but very confussing for someone without a pretty good pc/logic brain (me!)

AJshep · May 16, 2018

J.C.E said:
on the Loxone course in reading this week funny enough!
mostly config based course- although we are apprently touching wiring tomorrow (last day of 4)
- the config/ laptop side of thing is amazing but very confussing for someone without a pretty good pc/logic brain (me!)

How you getting on with it ? I wired a few Loxone houses, my old boss did the course a few years ago,he took sweet F all away from it, and I had to learn off YouTube.
Whenever I asked him he used to say "the course went a bit quick really", he sat next to a guy called Tom, who had just joined Loxone

(he's probably taking your class) lol.

Anyway, although I'm fairly confident with lighting controllers and other function blocks, I'm intressed if the course takes you through IP commands, as these's are the areas that I have not been able to work out.

cliffed · May 17, 2018

I’m the sparky installing all the cabling,the software etc looks the business,looking forward to the completion,seeing how things work.

J.C.E · May 17, 2018

AJshep said:
How you getting on with it ? I wired a few Loxone houses, my old boss did the course a few years ago,he took sweet F all away from it, and I had to learn off YouTube.
Whenever I asked him he used to say "the course went a bit quick really", he sat next to a guy called Tom, who had just joined Loxone (he's probably taking your class) lol.

Anyway, although I'm fairly confident with lighting controllers and other function blocks, I'm intressed if the course takes you through IP commands, as these's are the areas that I have not been able to work out.

the config seems mind boggling enough to want to sub that bit out- and the course doesnt really touch wiring too much but it sounds like that bit is easy enough.... do you tend to install their 24v tree spots (and less extentions) or do you go for fire rated mains gu10s?

AJshep · May 17, 2018

J.C.E said:
the config seems mind boggling enough to want to sub that bit out- and the course doesnt really touch wiring too much but it sounds like that bit is easy enough.... do you tend to install their 24v tree spots (and less extentions) or do you go for fire rated mains gu10s?

I have never used the Loxone spots, the big installs I did were in 2013 so the tree range wasn't around then.
I did visit the Reading office and I saw their own LED 24v lights.
In my opinion it's all about cost.
Fair enough you have 4 channels on a rgbw dimmer you can split but with the 24v lights your going to need a another separate power supply and each light costs more than a standard Gu10..

Or you buy a dimmer extension which costs more but no need for a PSU and the lights are considerably cheaper.

On another note if your installing over 5 mtrs of their LED strip it's worth being aware that they 10amp PSUs are huge..

The tree range has definitely made loxone better though, and it definitely saves time. The house I did included running a cat5 to every switch.. took 2 days to second fix..