Lighting the way to a fully connected university

The University of Roehampton, in the Borough of Wandsworth, in London, has had a smartphone-accessible BEG DALI control system installed, which means operators can independently manage the building’s lighting using an app.

The University planned to redevelop the Sir David Bell Building on the Digby Stuart Campus. This involved remodelling and extending two adjacent buildings to consolidate and improve facilities for the Department of Media Culture and Languages.

This included the creation of specialist teaching areas including film, television and sound studios, a 90+ seat cinema, photographic studios, cutting/editing suites and a flexible creative project space for the University’s new digital media course, as well as accommodation for university-wide student-facing support facilities.

The University of Roehampton appointed mechanical and electrical building services engineering company Michael Jones & Associates to design a new lighting control system. The university required a system which would enable staff to control lighting themselves with the added benefit of reducing energy usage. Typically, lighting can account for around 25 percent of a university’s energy costs.

Lighting controls specialist BEG Lighting Controls proposed the BEG DALI-LINK system which offers flexible, scalable DALI lighting control and, because it is Bluetooth-enabled it is easy to configure and change as room uses evolve, from changing scenes to adjusting the lights’ brightness. This DALI addressable system can be programmed simply and quickly using a smartphone and using the free-to-download BEG app.

BEG Specification Director, Tom Greenrod, said: “In the teaching rooms, the university required constant light level control with absence detection and a scene for presenting. This was achieved using a mains power supply and a DALI bus linking all of the luminaires, the DALI-LINK multi-sensor and a push button module. This module was located behind a two-gang switch plate with two push to make retractive switches.

“One switch was used for absence and daylight linking and the second for a pre-set scene. The multi-sensor in this situation was used in absence mode but can also be used in presence mode or even work as a photocell. These changes are made to the settings via the BEG app.

“The lecture theatre required six scenes and this was achieved using the Bluetooth push button module and a second non-Bluetooth module. Using a second push button module the number of scenes available is increased to eight. A maximum of 16 scenes can be obtained using four modules. As the BEG DALI-LINK is app-based system it is very easy to make changes to settings and store them.”

For more information, visit www.beg-luxomat.com