Acuity Brands Launches the ROAMview Lighting Control System, Extending the Company’s ROAM Roadway Technology into Site and Area Lighting

The ROAMview system provides property owners and small municipalities the ability to efficiently manage outdoor lighting using a wireless monitoring and control system.   

Introducing the ROAMview™ lighting control system, an expansion of  the Company’s ROAM^® suite of industry-leading wireless outdoor lighting monitoring and control systems.  ROAMview features a pre-configured server and software package that can be easily deployed in smaller site, area or roadway applications such as car dealerships, shopping malls and campuses.

The ROAMview system allows property owners and small municipalities to efficiently operate and maintain their outdoor lighting by taking advantage of the optimal lighting performance, energy savings and reduced maintenance costs that the ROAM technology suite offers. With its pre-configured server and gateway, the ROAMview system simply connects to a user’s existing computer network, enabling control and monitoring from any computer within the user’s organization.

The intuitive, browser-based portal provides ease of control for grouping outdoor lighting fixtures, and easily applies customer-defined schedules for precise on/off and dimming.  Events or holidays that require specific lighting patterns are conveniently accommodated in the ROAMview portal’s simple drag-and-drop time-clock scheduling screen.

“With the addition of the ROAMview system to our product line, we can now offer all property owners a powerful suite of capabilities and features similar to those used by large municipalities,” said Terry Utterback, Acuity Brands Lighting Vice President and ROAM Value Stream Leader. “Without trenching a single foot of wire, they can go from circuit-based control to individual fixture control.  The system tracks and reports individual fixture performance, and  reports outages so that they can be quickly addressed.  It eliminates the need for night-time audits, the waste of day-burning lights and the elevated risks associated with lighting outages.”

The ROAMview system is simple to install and commission. Wireless ROAM nodes are installed on each fixture, attaching to an industry-standard NEMA® twist-and-lock receptacle.  As soon as the pre-configured server and gateway are energized, the system can begin to form its self-configuring, self-healing mesh network. It takes only a few hours to set up fixture groups and begin controlling lights.

Indoor and Outdoor LED Products Earn Honors

Three Acuity Brands products were named winners of four Product Innovation Awards (PIAs) from Architectural SSL magazine during LIGHTFAIR International. The magazine is a leading publication focused on LEDs and solid-state lighting throughout the built environment.

The PIAs, which honor the best LED luminaires and components on the market and the companies behind them, were given to:

• The Lithonia Lighting® RTLED™ luminaire, which received two Platinum Level honors in the General Ambient Lighting category and in the Most Innovative Optical Controls category.

• The Winona Lighting® Winline™ Submersible 607 Cool Core fixture, which received the Specialty Lighting Gold Level honor.

• The new Tersen® Ratio™ PG product, which received the Silver Level honor in the Low Bay/Garage category.

Acuity Brands Features Products, Industry Experts at LIGHTFAIR®

Acuity Brands again brings new products and industry experts to the LIGHTFAIR® International annual lighting trade show and conference in Philadelphia, PA, May 17-19. The Acuity Brands 2011 theme: “Expanding the Boundaries of Lighting.”

Exhibited will be the company’s comprehensive portfolio of LED luminaires and intelligent control systems in booth #1801, integrated prismatic daylighting solutions in the Sunoptics booth #3229, and aspects of a new collaboration with Neonlite in the Megaman-US booth #2726.

Expert presentations also are scheduled for LightFair; here’s who’s scheduled and what they’ll talk about.

• May 16, 9 a.m.: Richard Heinisch on energy standards.
• May 17, 2 p.m.: Peter Ngai and Jeannine Fisher on OLED lighting.
• May 17, 4:30 p.m.: Bill Ballweg on the transition to indoor LED lighting.
• May 19, 8:30 a.m.: Cheryl English on lighting regulations and energy codes.
• May 19, 8:30 a.m.: David DiLaura on modern lighting software.

New nLight Catalog Provides Design Information

A new and updated catalog is available for the nLight® Intelligent Lighting Control System. It contains comprehensive product information, including sample configurations for applications like retail, office, warehouse, and classroom.

The catalog incorporates a design guide that details best practices, information about lighting coverage patterns, wiring diagrams and an easy-to-read Quick-Reference guide.

The nLight system combines multiple lighting control options, including time-based, sensor-based, daylight-based, and manual functionality. It connects intelligent digital devices, including occupancy sensors, photocells, power/relay packs, wall switches, dimmers, relay panels and luminaires, to create an integrated lighting system with distributed intelligence that can be easily configured and customized to meet customers’ lighting requirements.

ROAM® Selected by Austin for Money-Saving Upgrade

The ROAM® remote monitoring system has been selected by the city of Austin for a comprehensive street lighting upgrade project. By the project’s anticipated completion in 2014, the city of Austin will be able to control each of its approximately 70,000 streetlights with the click of a mouse. The estimated annual savings: more than $1 million in combined energy and maintenance costs.

ROAM combines photo-control technology with wireless monitoring and control capabilities. In Austin, the ROAM system will be installed and managed by Austin Energy, which will monitor and control the streetlights using data received every hour from the wireless ROAM devices via a web-based communication system.

The ROAM solution is being used successfully by several cities throughout the country to help municipalities increase energy efficiency and reduce operating costs. These cities include College Station, TX; Los Angeles, CA; Glendale, AZ; and Anderson, IN.

Synergy Intelligent Ballast Control: Ultimate in Performance

The digital lighting-controls revolution has created a generation of electronic ballasts offering the ultimate in performance, flexibility, energy savings and cost-effectiveness. Among the best: Synergy Lighting Controls’ new Intelligent Ballast Control, or IBC, module.

The IBC is adaptable to reconfigurations of spaces, simple to program and maintain, easy to integrate with energy-savings programs such as daylight harvesting, economical, and communicative for system monitoring.

Synergy’s Intelligent Ballast Control module provides seamless integration between digital ballasts and the Synergy Lighting Control System, and is compatible with a variety of intelligent ballasts including DALI, Simply 5, and Lutron® Ecosystem® digitally addressable ballasts. Read more in this Application Guide.

Acuity Brands Controls: Your Source for Energy-Use Standards

Keeping up with ever-changing energy codes and regulatory requirements could be a full-time job. In fact, a new national standard for energy codes took effect December 30, 2010. Is your state compliant? Are you? What about your city or county?

Now, Acuity Brands Controls does that sorting for you, providing you with some of the most comprehensive, up-to-date information available anywhere for each jurisdiction in the U.S. Here are four key resources from Acuity Brands Controls:

1. Commercial-building Energy Codes Compliance guide. Summarizes major energy-code requirements and identifies LC&D and Sensor Switch products that help you comply with codes or go beyond compliance for unprecedented energy savings, flexibility and lighting control.

2. Subscribe to Acuity Brands Controls’ code e-mail alerts to keep current on changes in your state.

3. “LIKE” us on the Sensor Switch Facebook page to keep up with the latest energy code updates and discussions.

4. Also on Facebook, follow Acuity Brands Controls to keep up with relevant industry news and information.

Acuity Brands Expert to Talk LED, Controls at Conferences

William Ballweg

William Ballweg, Lithonia Lighting’s product development manager, will be a featured speaker at the  Solid State Lighting Design (“SSL Design”) 2011 Summit in Los Angeles and the Strategies in Light® conference in Santa Clara, Calif.

Ballweg will speak at SSL Design’s 2011 Summit on January 19 about using advanced, intelligent digital controls to maximize LED lighting efficiency, enhance lighting capabilities, and accelerate return on investment. He’ll speak at the Strategies in Light conference on January 23 about harnessing the collective power of intelligent digital lighting and control systems.

SwitchPak Now Integrates with BACnet Protocol

SwitchPak, a compact and economical lighting-control panel from Synergy Lighting Controls, is now available to integrate with building automation systems using BACnet communication as a standard option. BACnet is the world-wide standard protocol for building automation and control systems. For more information, visit the Synergy Lighting Controls Web site.

White Paper on High Bay Occupancy Sensors Available

A new Acuity Brands white paper entitled, “High Bay Occupancy Sensors: Delivering Energy Savings and Fast Return on Investment,” is available from Sensor Switch.

The white paper, which can be downloaded here from www.sensorswitch.com, discusses typical high bay spaces (with ceiling heights above 18 feet) such as warehouses, distribution centers, production facilities and other industrial spaces, and the energy that’s wasted in lighting unoccupied areas. The paper also reveals energy-efficient lighting solutions that can reduce energy consumption and provide tremendous cost savings.