today we're looking at the Interact Pro control system by Signify which works seamlessly
with these Coreline luminaires by Philips Lighting
okay so you had me busily going round to each of the three lighting points that we've got here
making a simple connection for line neutral and cpc so that must mean gordon you've got
all the technical stuff to look at yeah well technical normally when you think of lighting
control systems of the past you were thinking yeah technical specialist wiring commissioning visits
laptops this system is different it's incredibly easy to commission and incredibly easy to manage
after you've commissioned it all it needs is a mobile phone and a hub which connects to the
internet which we've installed behind us and then the communication between all the elements then is
easy with a wireless protocol so we've downloaded the relevant app which app was that gordon
so that's the signify app you find that in the google play store or the apple app store
just interact pro download it and then what we've done off camera is set up a project
uh so we're basically gonna join us when we're ready to install and commission the project
so the app's ready and we're up and running and ready to go so that must mean
that we've perhaps already done all the footage people are going to see and the reason behind
that is we made a decision to work out how easy it is to commission this system we've
done it in real time haven't we gordon we have and so we'll yeah warts and all we've we've
gone through the whole system start to finish so yeah we'll rejoin at the end to see how we got on
so what stage you went now gordon okay so we've installed our app we've created our project the
first stage of commissioning the project is we have to add our hub which we've mounted on the
wall here and in this if you bring the camera in gary you'll see there's three lights and we don't
like an led there's that power on it is connected to the network and it's connected to the cloud
so we're we're basically ready to go so i'm going to open up my app again
um touch on the project it says at the moment there's nothing to control
well there is soon because we're going to add the gateway and you basically just scan the qr code
this may take up to 20 seconds there we go it's good so now um we can continue and discover the
lights that we've got in the project so off camera i've energized all three of my light
fittings gordon but unless we have a power cut they're staying on all the time okay so it's
back to the app now we've got to add and discover what's in the project so miraculously the app says
discover lights it says this process may take some minutes okay so let's push the button start
discovering right okay so we're off and ready so we've got a little countdown clock there to
start the discovery process and this is what finding the lights we've got in the system it
is finalized we've gotten the system it says this can take up to 20 minutes so we may have
to rejoin you later with this okay so how is it finding these lightsane gordon so these are
communicating with a Zigbee based protocol so i guess at the moment the hub behind us is searching
out various uh to find out what Zigbee uh products are transmitting or discoverable on a network so
okay so it's now discovered three and we have three so i'm gonna try and just press the uh
stop discovering okay and now we're stretching there so it says this can take over 10 minutes
how many like things just remind me again how many things could we have on this system the hub itself
will support up to 200 light fittings and 50 input devices of which 30 of those can be occupancy
absence detection sensors all right hence the amount of time that it suggests it could take yeah
so we're fetching data now so i guess it's 33 oh i think i think that but that was quick that was
quick so now it says create groups so i'm assuming groups means essentially rooms so we're thinking
something i'm going to create a group okay so let's create a new group let's call that gary's
bench okay so gary's bench i'm going to create that gary's bench and so we're going through
this process trying to find these lights we're now pairing them or grouping them so you're in
that process yeah sorry three it says on the top of the app here we've got one gateway three lights
unassigned right so you can assign one at a time yeah so there's an unknown so you can see here
i've got the car line down light point that one out this is the core line down light just here
okay we've got a car line panel pull on panel and we've got it says unknown but i'm guessing this
behind us is that so quite remarkable when the lights above our head came on it would here we go
um so i'm going to assign the light okay so sign in the lights i'm going to assign it to gary's
bench so what's really nice is we're doing this first time out of the packet aren't we this is how
we've never played with this before so you'll bear him with us this is trying to show you in real
time how to discover and use the app so we've not been away practicing this you know for all morning
so it looks super slick we want to feel the pinch points that the electrician would feel at the same
time and how intuitive it is and it seems quite intuitive at the minute since that was easy I'm
going to create another group two groups so you've got a light in a group at the moment and we're
gonna call that gordon's wall gordon's wall so i hope that's the one behind us or we'll have some
fun seeing it isn't okay so called that one right so there's another group created and we're gonna
there's one light on the sides so you're gonna assign hopefully the one that's not yeah behind us
so you've now got two lights assigned to me on the bench one signed to you behind i don't know
that are you going to do something to prove that they're assigned okay so that was easy gary on a
small project but obviously on a larger project you probably have to walk around different rooms
to find out where these fittings that have been discovered actually are you'd have to
physically discover them yourself so to do that on the app again just tap on the room we've just
done right now just tap on the light in question so unknown 2 is behind no gary it's behind you oh
that's the fashion here sorry i apologize i see the light flashing down there okay I've discovered
it y'all would suggest at that stage so that's is that in your that's all that's gordon's
flashing so i'll repeat the process gary yeah look behind you yeah yeah which one's
going to flash gordon it's in front of you so okay that's the lead panel right okay
and there's the down lights right that's pretty so you can confirm which area you've put them
in or you're hunting down a fitting etcetera when you've found maybe you've got 100 fittings
it's going to be obviously very needed at that stage yeah oh i could have done that
as i walked around and then as i've as i found them assigned them to the rooms
yeah so okay yeah all right okay that was that was fun so now let's add some control so the
minute says there's no controls assigned okay so we're gonna have to unplug the electricity
turn the lights off you're gonna try and add a switch here add a switch normally
you'd be out grabbing your ladders pulling in cables yeah you've found the switch well i don't
know stop you there gordon just want to panic you a little bit here i can't see any cables and there
are no batteries so what does this work on so these are kinetic bare switches sort of harvesting
the energy when you push the switch itself work on magic so i'm going to now in the app add a switch
okay so just bring in a little bit closer camera here to have a look so we've got a two
button switch here select that so it says first instruction remove the flip from the rocker case
right so this is going to pair the switch switch to the uh switch to the hub and establish it on
the network discover it okay so i've got to have that the right way around looking for a
little zero at the top okay so i'm going to hold that down and press the activator for 10 seconds
all right okay you count to 10. so this is the first part of the pairing process so we're going
to pair one switch to my lights on the bench do you think we'll do yours as well gordon we
can have another go at that yeah well let's just see how lucky we are with this first attempt so
that's for 10 seconds i'll release that what's interesting another instruction now drumroll oh
okay then i have to press one and two at the same time and button three to confirm so i'll do that
right okay so you're pressing top top right bottom left give the switch and then so i'll call this
gary's switch it's original right okay i like that now we switch it i've done so i've done
that now i have to assign the switch to a group so i suggest we'll put that with gary's
bench unless you want to control my lights not really sign up there while that's seeing itself
rebuild it back to the rebuild the switch that didn't seem very long gordon in order to
pair that one up will it work yeah and you've got to put it back together so okay all right
oh there we go lights on okay
press and hold oh down it goes yeah so yeah so get it around the right way it's still got a plastic
keyboard and so we've got on and off some parts of the world they have that different way well
let's let's so can i have a go so are we saying down's on or ups on at the moment
so that was so all we need to do is turn it around and that will be coming on i like that yeah
and off so i think i'll add another switch you can add another switch to this lighting arrangement
or the one kind of thing on switch gary so you can have a gordon switch now so i'm going to
add switch two buttons so why he's doing that i really like this system from the point of view
the electrician only needs to take round the line a neutral and a cpc to all the lighting points and
then the controls added afterwards so it gives you massive flexibility got a really large office and
was here and counting to ten got a really large office um and you wanted to put some switches in
place and then all of a sudden you reconfigure it obviously maybe divide it in the middle and all
of a sudden you're thinking ah all the lights come on from one switch in both offices now
no just reassign the lights to new switches and obviously, you're off and running you don't
already know i'm confirmed so i'm going to have callers just already naming this switch
and i'm going to assign that to a group so let's assign that to gordon's wall assign
assign it in the group oh yeah right okay so that should be up and running straight away yeah
i'll rebuild it and we're expecting the one behind us now to be operated from that and that's how
simple it was so if you were changing an office round simply reassign switches and light fittings
to each area oh there we go easy marvelous and remember we're doing this in real time this is
the amount of time it's taken me and gordon to understand what we've got to do and actually
pair them in so hold on that was really quick switches off okay yeah switch on or i can hold
and i should be able to dim this down okay let's see if it dips oh yeah there it goes
here we go brilliant so so that's a switch and a dimmer switch and a dimmer yeah that's really
clever we can touch on scene setting that's probably something for the future so you can
obviously have multiple scenes and different lights doing different things in the office
um the key thing to remember about these things is that the control system is built into the
fitting it's not like a lot of other uh systems out there there's a lot of wireless systems out
there wet which rely on you sort of interfering with the wiring to the uh to the fixture itself
perhaps tapping at the DALI ballast and things like that this is incredibly simple
out the box they work and then you can bring in that functionality you can also add in
an occupancy sensor okay and guess how long it lasts on the battery gary so
these are battery powered absolutely powered so completely wise one air air battery in there
a year yes wow eight years so that's manual switches that's an occupancy sensor and i think
we've got occupancy video we have we've got a video if you don't want to do occupancy or absence
okay so if you haven't seen that check out that video you can also control them with the phone
app as well oh right i think you can give users the ability to control the light in their space
oh that's really key isn't it in their space you wouldn't want them maybe sitting in their office
turning the lights on and off downstairs as well i want you controlling gordon's wall with gary
switch i just wouldn't be on what else do you want to cover while we're in there okay so the only
thing to think about is this system is incredibly powerful we've showed a simple switching set up
here you can use the app to remotely monitor things like energy and make adjustments to the
system completely remotely from site okay by the hub now i think obviously i think we need to try
that so i think we'll do a little follow-up video and we'll go off-site and see if we can control
these lights from the efix customer service center with following that on could you maybe do some
fault diagnosis that way as well well let's find out okay so we'll find out in another video as
always efixx are interested in your comments have you fitted this lighting control system before
are you thinking about fitting one in the future what control systems do you like
using at the moment and me and the team at efixx will get back to as many of the comments as we
can