Automatic Lighting

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32032, 5 July 1969, Page 5

Automatic Lighting

Instead of having to get up and turn on the lights as it gets dark, one of the latest ideas, called Dynamic Lighting Control, will do it for you automatically. And, diaim the makers, it is cheaper than using switches. As Richard Oliver recalled in a 8.8. C. broadcast, lights that switch on automatically with the onset of darkness have been about for a long time—street lamps are often arranged like this. But the system is very rarely used for indoor installations because the sudden automatic switching on or off could be disutrbing. But Transtar has now developed a system in Britain .by which the lights automatically and imperceptibly come on as daylight fails. This is done with the help of transistor-like devices called silicon controlled rectifiers.

Quite sophisticated systems are worth while. In a deep room, for instance, a high level of supplementary artificial light is needed away from the windows during the day, but an over-all lower level at night. The Transtar Dynamic Lighting Control automatically balances supplementary lighting with sunlight As darkness falls, the supplementary lighting dims down to normal night-time level, and the rest of the lights in the room come on. Dynamic Control, says Transtar, can save 25 per cent of electricity bills by ensuring that high-power daylight supplementary lighting is not left full-on when it is not nettled.