Control Freak

If you like to control things LED lighting could be your friend. Of course light fixtures can't speak (yet!), but if an LED fixture could speak it'd tell you that it doesn't mind being controlled, in fact, it actually prefers it.
We can preach the benefits of LED lighting all day every day. The two things most people hear are energy savings and maintenance savings. That's a great start. But then we talk about being able to use daylight harvesting, task tuning, occupancy sensors, load shedding and then the discussion begins.....controlling the LEDs.
If you are planning a project/job/building and are planning on using LED lighting, good job. If you're not planning to control it, shame on you. This is where return on investment, significant energy savings, moving into the 'future' by way of controls comes into play and combined with LED technology, you have a win-win.

When I talk about controlling LEDs there are so many different ways to control them, it'd be impossible to discuss in one blog post.
A couple of easily understood ways:
1. Daylight Harvesting. You set up a sensor to read daylight in a conference room, for instance, and tell it you want maintained 40 footcandles. The fixture will dim down as the daylight increases and will ramp back up as the daylight decreases. Nobody has to work in the dark or a dimly lit room, nobody has to manually dim the lights, nobody has to think about it. Back to ideal energy efficiency, doing the same or more by using less energy, not having to change behavior.

2. Personal controls and occupancy sensors. Many are familiar with occupancy sensors, you walk into a bathroom and the lights come on, you leave your office for 5 minutes and when you come back it's dark. Add to that the ability to dim your office lights from your PC, or have your occupancy sensor read that you're not moving and have the personal control on your PC tell it you're in your office and typing and the office is still occupied. It sounds a little futuristic, but it's here.

I realize that just because you buy a 4 bedroom house doesn't mean you MUST go and have 3 children to fill it. So, just because you have LED lighting doesn't mean you HAVE to control it, it's just strongly suggested (and childbirth is NOT involved).