Power to the Specifier, Part Two: Less Material
‘Power to the Specifier’ is our latest blog series by Casambi North America that illuminates how Casambi offers the needed next paradigm shift in the lighting controls space, delivering creative freedom to the Specifier. Today, we focus on material reduction.
As technology has evolved, we’ve taken electronic devices that were clunky, requiring entire closets to house the mechanics, and transformed them into sleek designs that can often fit into the palm of our hands.
This concept of minimalism, born way before the smartphone, is about avoiding the unnecessary, and embracing simplicity, utility and elegance. We’ve seen this evolution in our computers, vehicles, and phones to name a few, yet when we look at the landscape of traditional lighting control installations, it seems to be relying on an archaic pager that no one uses anymore.
Traditional lighting control installations are inarguably laborious, requiring heaps of materials, coordination, electricians and uncertainties on the plans which will ultimately require back tracking. Add to all of that the unexpected roadblock and the job of the specifier and electrical engineer is anything but simple, or elegant. Casambi, industry leader of wireless BLE technology, knew there had to be a better way to bring lighting controls into the future using a minimalistic design approach with maximized features.
Let’s start with the wires. Casambi’s technology enables device-to-device wireless communication inside a lighting network. In short, all you need is the main voltage to power the fixture. There is no need for data wires, the Electrical Engineers planning of control zones, and endless on-site troubleshooting that eat up man hours. In addition, the simple task of running switch legs is now a thing of the past. Harmless as this seems, or perhaps you never gave it much thought, they can be 10 maybe 20 ft of 14- gauge wire, and did you know that from rough in to finish a simple switch leg can take up to 5 hours of an electrical contractor’s time? Wires present challenges, can get damaged, placed incorrectly, or loosen – air, not so much. With Casambi, any mistakes or last-minute changes can be rectified in the software. Save the planet, lower your costs, keep peace of mind, and keep the copper in the ground.
There’s strength in numbers. By eliminating the control wires and operating on our fully distributed wireless mesh network, we’ve eliminated the possibility of a single point of failure. In a mesh network, all nodes are connected to one another, and every single one contains the same, full intelligence of the network, removing the need for a control panel, or router. Such networks expand automatically as more devices are added to them. In fact, they can scale up to hundreds of devices without needing a central hub to connect them. This is perhaps where our sleek design best mimics the minimalist concept. Once there was a large footprint dedicated to housing the control panel wires, requiring specifiers to design around it, or make space for it but with our technology, they’ve been empowered to reclaim space that should have been theirs all along.
What’s gained. It is a fact that Casambi’s technology takes up less space, uses less material, significantly reduces a building’s fire load and requires less people and labor to install. What is also a fact is that our features and functionality are unlike anything else in the market. While maintaining our minimalistic motto of simplicity, elegance and utility we’ve innovated a product that is fully customizable, allowing for both zone-level and luminaire level controls, full RGBW, circadian adaptive lighting, scheduling, and more.
In our case, HCL is not saved for the end user experiencing the space. Our entire process is human centric in its simplicity and elegance from planning, to installation, to customizing, and then experiencing it.
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