The start of every New Year is a time for building owners, managers, and homeowners to make improvements or upgrades they’ve been considering for weeks, months, or maybe, since last New Year. In 2017, lighting controls, shading, and building systems technologies made great strides in areas of Human Centric Lighting (HCL), user experience, mobility, integrated shading and lighting, and more.

With 2018 as a fresh start, many spaces from classroom to conference room or home entertainment areas can benefit from the latest solutions designed by Legrand’s Building Control Systems (BCS) division, which comprise of QMotion, Solarfective, Vantage Controls, and Wattstopper products, to make sure their resolutions are realized. Precise command of lighting – artificial and natural – in spaces is a critical function that can drastically improve the efficiency, comfort, and desirability of a building or home.

Digital Lighting Advancements – Last year, major developments in advanced digital lighting capabilities like HCL and wireless controls were announced. In 2017, HCL solutions were introduced from Legrand with the promise to make it simpler to control lighting, including dynamic white and color temperature using circadian or custom schedules and preferences in commercial and residential environments. As the science and technology around Human Centric Lighting develop, the focus today is delivering the highest quality tunable color lighting for visual comfort.

Legrand also released a Wireless Networking Solution for the Wattstopper Digital Lighting Management (DLM) platform allowing contractors to network DLM rooms together without the need for Segment Network Wire (MS/TP), simplifying room-to-room connectivity and installation.

Integrated Lighting and Shading – Optimized lighting means being able to provide the right amount of light to help people accomplish their tasks, keep energized, or be more relaxed and comfortable, which is why integrated lighting control and shading solutions have become important. Shades are a big part of daylighting strategies too, not only helping to improve occupant comfort but increasing energy savings by reducing the use of generated lighting in spaces.

Legrand’s lighting and shading solutions integrate seamlessly. Vantage Controls’ and QMotion’s full software integration brings greater efficiency, cost savings, and simplicity to home automation projects.  Solarfective commercial shading systems with Wattstopper’s Architectural Dimming platform ensures commissioning is done quickly and easily, providing greater efficiency, and time savings on commercial projects.

Future Proofing Buildings – Legrand products are developed with the purpose of meeting or exceeding code requirements and meeting lighting trends such as high performance building and home initiatives. In the area of codes, Michigan and Florida in 2017 were among the states to update commercial lighting code requirements. More changes are on the horizon across the country. When updating facilities this year, be sure to work with a lighting engineer, specifier, and manufacturer to make sure that all new products are not only code compliant now, but are flexible to adapt to code changes in the future.

Solutions such as the EasyTouch II Universal Dimming Station simplify the integration of various load types in lighting projects and enable the dimming of any forward or reverse phase LED lighting sources, which had previously been difficult to achieve.

User Experience – Throughout the major phases of any lighting project – from design, project mobilization, installation, to first use – bringing great user experiences to everyone involved in the project through great products, services, resources is an imperative. Trends in user experience include Lighting as a Service and development of intuitive, easy-to-use interfaces in the commercial space.

Last year, Legrand launched Connected Services, a secure, remote support service that employs hardware and software technology for DLM-networked projects. It includes access to dedicated system experts that can address programming, configuration, and troubleshooting issues remotely. This service provides a superior installation and startup experience to electrical contractors. It delivers the best first year experience to facility directors and building owners and provides assurance of high levels of customer satisfaction to specifiers.

In addition, Legrand released its Commercial Equinox User Interface solution for the Wattstopper architectural dimming platform, which comes installed on Equinox touchscreens and is downloadable as an app on mobile devices. It provides the simplicity end-users (building owners, facility managers, and occupants) want and can scale and adapt to changing needs for any space.