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Chapter 4 · Milestone

Milestone: Light Your Building

  • Lesson
  • 25 min

Up to now you have practiced each part of LOXONE lighting on its own. In a real project the parts come together, and the customer judges the result as a whole: does the home light itself the way they asked?

In this milestone you light the apartment you commissioned earlier in the training. You plan it, prepare it, let Auto Configuration build the program, and then check and adjust it, just as you would on a real project.

By the end of this milestone you will have:

  • Planned the fittings, switches and power for every room
  • Prepared the project so Auto Configuration builds it correctly
  • Adjusted the moods and the landing to the customer's wishes
  • Tested Good Night and Leaving House for the whole apartment

The situation

Your customer lives in a two bedroom apartment of about 86 m², all on one floor. The cabinet with the Miniserver sits by the entrance on the landing.

They have told you how they want the lighting to work. Warm light where they relax and sleep, brighter light where they cook and wash. A light on the landing that comes on by itself at night, dimmed. One button by the bed that turns the whole apartment off at night, and one at the entrance that does the same when they leave. And they want the home to keep working during a power cut.

Your job is to deliver exactly that.

RoomAreaRoom TypeLighting wish
Living room20 m²Common Room Warm
Kitchen16 m²Common Room Brighter, neutral
Bedroom18 m²BedroomWarm, Good Night button
Kid's bedroom18 m²BedroomWarm
Bathroom6 m²Common Room Brighter, neutral
Landing8 m²ThoroughfareAutomatic, dimmed at night
Information

The kitchen and living room have no wall between them. Plan them as one room of about 36 m², with warm light in the living area and neutral light in the kitchen.

Part 1 · Plan the lights

Start on the floor plan, before you open LOXONE Config.

  1. Choose the fittings for each room

    Use LED Spots for general light, a Ceiling Spot where you cannot recess, an LED Ceiling Light as a main light with sensors built in, and a Pendulum for accents such as the dining table.

  2. Work out how many lights each room needs

    Plan about one spot per 2.8 m², or one LED Ceiling Light for up to 20 m².

  3. Plan the color temperature

    With RGBW lights, warm and neutral white are settings in the moods, not different fittings

  4. Place the switches and the sensor

    Put a Touch in every room. In the bedroom, place it beside the bed, and put one on the landing at the entrance. Place the presence sensor so it covers the landing but not the living area, because the landing opens into it without a door.

  5. Plan the power

    Mark a 24 V supply for the lights, separate from the system supply, and mark where the two share a common ground.

  6. Plan for the power cut

    Use a Power Supply and Backup with a battery, and note which lights must keep working.

Part 2 · Prepare the project

Auto Configuration builds the program from the information in your project. The better you prepare it, the less you need to change afterwards.

  1. Add every planned device to the project

    Add the lights, the Touch switches and the presence sensor from your plan. A device that is not installed yet can be added as a placeholder.

  2. Name every device

    Use names the customer will understand in the app, such as Ceiling Light Kitchen.

  3. Assign every device to a room and a category

    Auto Configuration connects devices to the blocks of the room they belong to. A device without a room is left out.

  4. Set the room type of every room

    Use the room types in the table above. Good Night only works from a room set as a Bedroom, and Leaving House only from a Thoroughfare.

  5. Create the lighting groups

    Put the spots of each room into a lighting group, and assign each group to its room.
Tip

Name every mood the way the customer would say it, such as Dinner or Reading. The names appear in the app, and the customer will use them every day.

Part 3 · Run Auto Configuration

Select all the functions in one run, so Auto Configuration builds the rooms and the central functions together.

  1. On the My Project tab, click Auto Configuration.
  2. In the basic functions, select every room.
  3. In the comfort functions, select Central Functions and Good Night, then confirm.

Part 4 · Check and adjust

Auto Configuration builds a basic program. Now go through the apartment room by room, and make it match what the customer asked for.

  1. Complete the To-Do notes

    Open each room's programming page, do what each To-Do note says, and delete the note when it is done.

  2. Adjust the moods

    Set warm moods in the living area and the bedrooms, and brighter neutral moods in the kitchen and bathroom. Rename each mood the way the customer would say it, such as Dinner or Reading.

  3. Keep each wall switch rotation short

    Tick only two or three daily moods for rotation. The other moods stay available in the app.

  4. Check the landing

    The motion output of the sensor must go to the motion input of the Lighting Controller, with brightness to brightness. Set the brightness threshold so the light comes on only when the landing is dark.

  5. Check the night light on the landing

    Make the Night mood dim and gentle. On the Automatic tab, the rule for the Night operating mode must sit above the rule for any operating mode.

  6. Check the central functions

    On the Central page, check that Lighting Central controls every room's Lighting Controller and has a favorite star. Set the Pulse At block to the time Night should end in the morning.
Warning

An open To-Do note might mean that part of your logic does not work yet. Would be good to read and complete them.

Part 5 · Test the whole apartment

Test in simulation first, then on the Demo Case with LiveView. Test the way the customer will live in the apartment, not block by block. The milestone is complete when every one of these is true:

  • Every room has warm or neutral light, as the customer asked
  • Each wall switch moves through only the daily moods, and every mood can be reached in the app
  • The landing light comes on when it is dark and stays off in daylight
  • After Good Night, the landing light comes on dimmed
  • A triple click by the bed turns off the whole apartment, every time
  • A triple click at the entrance turns off the whole apartment, every time
  • The app shows no Not Assigned room
  • Your plan shows separate supplies with a common ground, and a backup for the power cut
Tip

Triple-click Good Night twice in a row. If the second triple click does not turn everything off, check the memory flag link on the Central page. Auto Configuration builds it, but a change made by hand can break it.

Takeaway

The apartment now lights itself the way the customer asked: warm where they relax, bright where they work, automatic on the landing, and off with one triple click by the bed or at the door. Auto Configuration built the base, and your checks made it right. Keep the project open, because the next course adds to the same building.

Apply What You've Learned

Task

Light your building

Complete Parts 1 to 5 for the apartment. Save your floor plan with the lights, switches, supplies and backup marked on it, and keep your LOXONE Config project open.

Then write two or three sentences for the customer, explaining how their lighting works: what the wall switches do, what happens at night, and what the two triple clicks do.

Module outline