Remote Controlled Lighting Options

[Bavs108]

Hey guys

So I'm in the process of installing lighting in my home theatre room. I have an electrician coming in 2 weeks time to do the installation. The setup will be as follows:

- There will be 6 x 7W dimable LED downlights along the sides of the room
- 2 x 7W dimable LED downlights in a display cabinet on either side of the projector screen
- 24 x 1.5W dimable LED starlights randomly placed in the ceiling.
- 1 x existing non dimable light fixture in the center of the room which I'm keeping as is.

All 4 points above will be running off their own dimmer switches (3 dimmer switches and 1 regular light switch). Everything is 220v with the exception of the starlights which will be run off an extra low voltage transformer.

What I would like to do is have all the lighting in the room controlled by remote. I have a Logitech Harmony One remote which controls everything in the room at the moment and it can be programmed to control just about any IR device so it would be cool to have the lights programmed on it as well.

Anyone with experience on the above have any advice/pointers on what is needed and the best way to set it up?

 

[NavZ]

I would like to know too.
I take it this is for a projector set up?
Even a clapper would do :rollsmile:

 

[Bavs108]

Yup it's for my projector room... A clapper would be interesting:rollsmile:

I just emailed these guys to see what they'd recommend.

http://www.qwikswitch.co.za

My remote currently controls everything in the room so it would be quite cool to programme lighting as well. I can programme it so that the lights dim when a movie starts:rollsmile:

 

[boost3d]

Subscribed! :rollsmile:

 

[NavZ]

Yeah, with the S4/S5 having built in iR you could even control everything via your phone :inlove:
I currently control my tv, aircon, sound system & projector with my S5 :idea:

 

[Bavs108]

I found this as well. Actually did some research on it some time back, but I read somewhere that these don't like voltage spikes so some people have reported their lights switching on at random times:flyfun: I stand under correction though.

http://www.x10-sa.co.za

At the moment with my Harmony One I have it programmed so that I just press "watch movie" and it switches on my projector, amp and sets it to the correct inputs. My ps3 I unfortunately have to use the Bluetooth remote. Then if I want to watch tv I press the button and it switches on everything including the pvr. Would be awesome to programme the lights to dim as well:rollsmile:

 

[boost3d]

Bav's , you can buy a Bluetooth adaptor for your logitech remote !

 

[Bavs108]

Bav's , you can buy a Bluetooth adaptor for your logitech remote !

Yup I've seen those. I got my remote around 3-4 years ago and at the time I couldn't find anyone who sold the adapter locally. Probably still hard to find them. But I eventually gave up on that. I can live with using the PS remote separately.

 

[Bavs108]

Lights finally got done today:rollsmile: We're still looking into the remote control options though. Let me know what you guys think:thumbs:

This is how the room looked before:

And after:

I added 6 more starlights than originally planned, totaling 30 running off 2 transformers instead of 1 to balance the load. Downlights are 5.5w warm white instead of 7w cool white.

Next step is to change the carpeting and lounge suite...

 

[abharoochi]

:inlove: Nice!!

Looks really good - the lighting made a huge difference!:thumbs:

 

[Bavs108]

Unfortunately one of the transformers is faulty so only half of the starlights are working at the moment:yuck: gonna have it sorted on Monday though:thumbs: the big difference now is that we can watch movies with the lights on. The old lights caused the picture to be washed out, almost to the point of being unwatchable.

 

[NavZ]

Next step is to change the carpeting and lounge suite...

:rollsmile:

 

[abmi0000]

Looking good :thumbs:

 

[Bavs108]

Next step is to change the carpeting and lounge suite...

:rollsmile:

It doesn't seem to end:flyfun: there's always something to do...