(upbeat sound)
- When it comes to illumination
and especially smart controls,
it can sometimes feel like landscape lighting
can be left out in the dark.
Landscape lighting by the way
is just a posh way of saying garden lighting.
However, Ansell have decided
that enough is enough by injecting a lot of
smart technology into this
often overlooked area of lighting and control.
So we've decided that we're going to overhaul this garden
with some seriously attractive outside lights from Ansell
and we're really going to focus in
on some of the clever controls from that OCTO portfolio.
Now it's worth noting at this stage
that there are two branches
to the OCTO portfolio.
One of them uses WiZ technology
and the other uses CASAMBI
and they are not compatible with each other
they're completely separate systems.
Now, broadly speaking
WiZ is designed for use in domestic installations,
whereas CASAMBI is more for your high end residential
and commercial and industrial systems.
Now there's nothing to stop you from using CASAMBI
on a domestic setting much as we are here
but it's a bit like strapping a jet engine
to your granny scooter,
really cool, but a bit overpowered.
Now there's one element of this system
which is brilliant for outside lighting
and also fairly unique
so stay tuned to find out what that is.
Let's have a quick look at some of the ideas
that we've had for this garden lighting scheme.
One thing to bear in mind
with outside lighting especially,
is that it's not just about the light itself,
it's about what you light.
So in the front garden here,
we're going to light up this crab apple tree
that forms the centerpiece of this
kind of spring bulb bed,
that just kinda burst into life and color
in the early spring time.
I feel like this is the closest
I'm ever going to get to being Monty Don.
So I'm using the Garda like fitting from Ansell
and I'm gonna place two of them
around the bed and around the tree.
Now, the great thing about this fitting
is that it can be mounted in one of two ways,
it can either be wall mounted on its integral bracket
or as we're going to do,
we can attach this applied spike here
and place it into the ground.
So I'm gonna put one at the front of the tree
and put it quite close
so that it really illuminates the trunk of the tree
from the side that you approach.
And then the other fitting,
I'm gonna put a little bit further back
and I'm gonna angle upwards
so that it really illuminates the foliage of the tree.
Now I'm going to feed these fittings
from a fuse connection unit off a ring final circuit
on this side of the property.
Now, the question naturally arises,
how are we going to control
these light fittings?
Well, I really want this to aluminate
as someone approaches the house
but I also want to have override control
so that I can turn the lights on and off
whenever I choose to
as well as giving me one of the special feature
that we'll get to a little bit later.
So I'm going to use this motion detector
mounted on the house itself
and that's going to turn the lights on
and off as people approach
and I'm also going to connect it
to this override switch
that's gonna go inside the house.
Now the best place for this detector
is actually on the other end of the building
from where the lights have been fed from.
Normally this would mean getting a cable
from one end of the building
all the way to the other,
we could either clip it along the outside
which would look absolutely terrible
or we could rip up a load of floorboards
and cause a huge mess internally.
But now we start to see
some of the benefits of this system
because actually I can connect this motion detector
to a completely different circuit
and have it control my lights wirelessly.
In addition to that,
the switch, which is also going to control
my lights doesn't even need
a supply taken to it.
To achieve this
we need a device connected
to the lights to control them
and that is
this device here,
the OCTO outdoor controller.
Now there's a few things
I really like about this product
and one is just the overall shape of it.
It's not just a square box sitting on the wall,
it's got plenty of room to bring the cables in
and nice large terminals
for connecting up the cables.
It's got these little recess pips as well
in the bottom to act as a drilling guide
for the entry holes
and is rated the IP 65.
So to sum up the lighting at the front here,
I'll bring a supply cable into this box,
connect it into the permanent live side of the device,
then the outgoing cable to the lights
will go into the switch terminal.
Then I'll pick up a feed
from the lighting circuit
at the other end of the house
to supply the PIR detector.
These two devices
plus the switch
will then communicate wirelessly
to each other and control the spotlights.
Now, at this point,
we've got three items communicating wirelessly
and when we get to the back garden,
we're going to be increasing
that number significantly.
So now seems like a really good time
to consider one of the key benefits
of the OCTO portfolio.
That key benefit is mesh networking.
Now without getting too technical,
instead of having a central hub
or just one controlling device,
all the devices with the OCTO technology built in
will connect to the other devices
they can see in the network.
If you are to visualize these connections,
they would form a mesh.
This makes the system really reliable
because all the devices contain the system information,
meaning that if one device goes down temporarily,
the other devices will give it the information it needs
when it comes back online,
meaning that it won't need resetting or recommissioning.
So in this sense,
the system is actually self healing, just amazing.
So these devices all connect to each other
to form a network
and within that network,
you can have up to 127 devices,
however, there's no limit on the number of networks
that you can create to go into an installation.
Each device has a Bluetooth connection inside it,
as we've said,
that's what it relies on for its connection
and that gives you a 15 meter operating range per device
if it's mounted internally,
however, you get a 30 meter range
if it's mounted externally,
bearing in mind, of course,
that's going to vary depending on the kind
of obstacles that are in between each individual device.
Now because the system relies on Bluetooth connectivity,
it means that if the wifi connection
inside the property goes down
or you lose the internet for any reason,
the system will continue to operate.
As long as you have a bluetooth connection,
you can continue to control
the system from your device
or the connected switches and sensors.
And just one additional point
on the OCTO outdoor controller,
it can handle 200 Watts of loading
so it will be able to control
and dim that as a maximum.
So what's happening with the lighting
around the back of this property then?
Well, we're going to install some lighting
on the concrete fence posts here,
on every post I'll be putting one of these Dugas fittings,
which I think are absolutely great.
They're simple, they're elegant, they're unobtrusive
and they also have the benefit
of being able to be mounted
as either an up lighter
or a down lighter,
now I'm gonna be using them as a down lighters
and I've always got one eye on the future,
the idea is that there's gonna be fruit trees
growing along here
with the branches trained along wires on the fence
so these lights again, will highlight
and pick out the details of those
in the months and years to come.
Now, I'm also gonna be installing
four of these Calo fittings
along the back wall of the house here,
one on each kind of brick section
between the windows and the doors there.
Now I really like these,
they're modern, streamlined
and are going to look great
on the back wall here,
offering some excellent lighting
to the patio and the raised lawn.
Now these are not smart fittings,
obviously they provide
the usual excellent styling and quality
that you always get from Ansell lighting products
but it's what we connect to them
that makes the system smart.
So our Dugas fittings
will be connected via an OCTO outdoor controller,
the same as the spike lights at the front
and the Calo fittings
will have these OCTO smart lamps installed on them.
Now, the thing I particularly love about these
is that it solves an age old problem for the electrician
when it comes to installing outside lights
on an existing property,
namely getting the cable in.
Normally I'd have to get floorboards up inside,
fish around, get the cable from source
to the first fitting
and then onto each position,
it'd be a bit of a nightmare.
However, because the control
for this system is wireless,
I can actually connect these lights off,
any lighting or ring final circuit
I can access from here.
And potentially it could be a different circuit per fitting,
obviously we'd connect to the ring final circuit
using a fuse connection unit
or something like that
but the point is
that it makes installation so much easier
as well as other benefits,
including that key one
that we're holding out for a little bit later.
Now, control for this system
comes in the form of a PIR detector
and also this time we're gonna be using
this wireless exterior switch
that has an IP 65 rating as well.
Now I love the idea that we can install
that PIR anywhere around the house
and use it to control lights behind the property
if we want to,
we can take this switch around with us,
we can carry it around
and use that from anywhere in the garden
to control the lighting.
So I think that is a really fantastic benefit
of this system being totally wireless.
So, I think we get the installation work done,
and then we have a chat about commissioning
and see the final effects of this lighting scheme.
(upbeat music)
So that's all the installation done,
so now it's just a matter of commissioning.
All I've got to do
is download the app from the play store
in my case
as I'm using an Android device
and I'm good to go.
Of course, it's also completely compatible with iOS
if you're using an Apple device
to commission instead.
Now as it gets darker,
we can start to appreciate
some of the effects of this lighting.
So let's look at a couple of nice features here,
first of all,
on the OCTO smart lamps.
Now, the first very cool thing I can do
is to turn them all on and off
from within the app
because I've grouped them all together
as you can see there,
but then I can also change
the color temperature of the lumps
so I can make them as cool as 4,500 kelvin,
which looks like this
and is great for
when I'm doing jobs in the garden of an evening,
like sweeping up leaves
or perhaps taking out the bins
or I can set them as warm as 2,200 kelvin,
perfect for creating a cozy,
intimate feel for entertaining
let's say a barbecue or something like that
and the latest version of this OCTO lamp
actually has a color temperature range of 2,200 kelvin
all the way up to 6,900 kelvin,
which gives you an even greater range of color temperature.
I can also,
and this for me
is just the absolutely best feature of this system,
that killer feature
I can now dim my outside lighting,
which is something
that we should all be thinking about more often
because nowhere in an electrical installation
is the light level more changeable
or more effected by external factors
than the outside lighting,
as the evening light gradually fades
we can now adjust the light level
accordingly instead of having them
just blasting out at full level
or not having them on at all.
And yet, how often do we think
about dimming our outside lighting?
I think that's an absolute game changer.
Now, just a word on lumps for the other fittings,
as we said,
the Dugas and Garda fittings themselves aren't smart,
it's the OCTO controllers
that are actually doing the work.
So I've selected some compatible LED lamps to go in these
and now all my garden lighting
as you can see here is dimmable.
I've also hooked up the PIRs
to the relevant lights
so the PIR at the front of the property
brings on the Garda fittings around the tree
and the one at the back will pick up
when I come out of the back door
and bring on the lighting here.
I can also override the lighting
using this exterior switch here,
which I'm going to keep outside by the decking
and also by the internal switch
that you can see here
that I'm keeping by the back door.
And one really lovely little feature of this
that I think is just brilliant is that
this is actually detachable
and it's held on by magnets
so you could potentially take this off
and take it to different areas of the house
if you needed to.
So now I can control the lighting
from the different switches
all wireless of course,
or from the app
and I can set up
different combinations of lights
coming on at different levels
to create different scenes
for different occasions.
Let's just have a look at some examples of that.
So here you can see
I've set up the OCTO smart lamps
in the CASAMBI fittings to be
on the whitest lights
so this is 4,500 kelvin under full brightness,
so this is what I would use
when perhaps I needed to take
the bin out on an evening,
in order to stay safe
and not trip over anything.
And here you can see that I've matched the color temperature
of the OCTO smart lamps
to the fittings inside of the Dugas fittings
that I installed.
And these are running at full brightness now,
which means that we've got the same set
for perhaps a nice evening of entertaining
and on full brightness
while the cooking is taking place
and the conversations flowing.
And now I've created a third scene
for perhaps as the evening started to wind down,
I've dimmed the lights down to a much lower level,
I've made these OCTO smart lamps down
to their warmest settings
so they're now in 2,200 kelvin,
and this is a more cozy,
intimate feeling for perhaps
the end of the evening.
So the next time you do an outside lighting project,
give some thought to how you can take it up a notch,
think about how you can make it flexible,
adaptable and smart,
and think about using the OCTO portfolio from Ansell.
But remember this system isn't restricted to gardens
and residential applications like we've shown here,
commercial and industrial applications
can also be transformed
with the OCTO portfolio also.
So make sure you consider it
for a whole host of applications
when thinking about your next project.
Thank you very much for watching.
(upbeat sound)