Motion Sensors & LED Lighting

Introduction

Adam: This is the Wisconsin Lighting
Lab podcast, and my guest today is Trent. Trent is our LED engineering manager,
and we're going to have a quick discussion today on a photocell and occupancy
sensor product that we offer. It's a very standard part and product, and we
integrate it into quite a few different fixtures. It's the Legrand WattStopper,
and this is going to be a general overview. I think we'll have other
discussions but more specific topics about this particular product. We use it
for indoor applications and outdoor applications. On the outdoor side, it could
be shoeboxes, wall packs, area lights, even some of the higher-mast
applications, although I think there is a mounting-height ceiling — something
like 30 or 40 feet.

Trent: Okay.

Adam: And then on the indoor side,
warehouses, manufacturing spaces. Our facility here in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin —
all of our fixtures are outfitted with this particular product. It's been a
really good product for us over the last few years. And in markets like
California where they have Title 24, oftentimes things like this aren't just
nice to have — they're a requirement for that particular market.

Motion Sensor Functions

Adam: So I guess, Trent, to dive in —
as far as the functions are concerned, what does this product do?

Trent: It's a simple motion sensor. It
also does photocell control, so just on and off at dusk and dawn. And yeah,
that's pretty much it.

Factory Settings

Adam: I know there are some standard
settings that it comes with, and once it's installed in the field, there's an
iPhone and Android application with a Bluetooth connection where you can adjust
them. I know we typically try to ship the product ready to use. What are the
factory settings that the customer might receive it with?

Trent: From the factory, the only
thing that's enabled is the motion control. The photo control is shut off,
because it's application-specific — there are different light levels everywhere
depending on ambient light. At motion, it turns on to 100 percent. After five
minutes, it dims down to 10 percent. And then after one hour, it'll turn the
fixture off.

Programming Multiple Sensors

Adam: Once the products are installed
in the field, can multiple units or multiple sensors be programmed at once, or
does it have to be on an individual basis?

Trent: In the app, you can identify
each sensor within range. I think it's about a hundred feet, so any sensors
within a hundred feet will get detected. You just program each one
individually, and the light will flash once it's been programmed. You just go
through the list, and you have a preset that you just keep applying to each
fixture.

Motion Sensor Settings

Adam: In a typical application — a
mall parking lot, say — I think a lot of the settings we see contractors and
customers demand would be: on at dusk, using the photo control, to 50 percent
output, and then if there's motion in the parking lot it'll trigger to some
percentage of output. Can we set that percentage, or does it have to go to 100
percent once it gets triggered?

Trent: You can set the high mode —
which is when you detect motion — anywhere from zero to 100 percent, and then
low mode is zero to 98 percent.

Adam: Okay. I'm trying to think of an
application where somebody would set the high mode to anything other than 100
percent. As for the low mode — we've done a couple of large parking garages
where they more or less wanted the fixtures on 24/7. The low mode was, I think,
70 percent. The fixture was on all the time at 70 percent; with motion it would
trigger and switch to 100 percent, and then after a couple of minutes of no
motion it would go back down to 70. So for a typical parking lot install, the
photo control kicks it on to a certain percentage at dusk; with motion it goes
up to 100 percent; after, say, five minutes it'll go back down to 50; and then
at dawn, more or less, it triggers completely off, correct?

Trent: Correct.

Adam: And the on/off trigger at dusk
and dawn — we can also set the sensitivity of that?

Trent: Correct. It's actually called
daylight harvesting. You can set it with a predetermined foot-candle reading.
It would be recommended that the customer do that with the app, because they're
able to do an auto-detect — it picks up any other ambient light from other
light fixtures or sources to figure out what the best level is.

Different Applications

Adam: Like you mentioned, each
application is going to be different. It could be based on the angle of the
photo control relative to the sun, it could be overhangs on the side of a
building. I know on our office space and showroom here, we have some wall pack fixtures
with just standard photocells, and depending on the position of the photocell
relative to the overhang and the sun, they go on and off at different times.
Like you said, it's not necessarily possible for us to know the exact setting
or application for each fixture — that's why they have the Bluetooth
application, the iPhone and Android applications, and from there the contractor
or customer can fine-tune it. I would imagine that it's kind of an 80/20 thing
where there are certain standard settings that would apply for 80 percent of
applications. I think we can probably do a better job of identifying what those
are and setting them at the factory, but also, as you mentioned, knowing that
there is some adjustability that's needed. So we've got photo control, daylight
harvesting, dimming to a certain percentage, and a ceiling and a floor as far
as output. It's a pretty simple controls product, but I think that's pretty
much it, right?

Trent: Yeah, it's very
straightforward.

Factory Integration

Adam: One of the things we do is we
actually integrate this into our products right at the factory. There are
certain applications where it might be pole-mounted on some type of coupling on
the pole, or it could be at a junction box or a panel where it would actually
operate multiple assemblies. But there is a wattage ceiling — there's a certain
number of fixtures that can be run off of this product, correct?

Trent: Right. At 120 volt you're
limited to 800 watts worth of fixtures, and then at 480 volt input you're
limited to 1,200 watts. So there is a ceiling.

Universal Voltage

Adam: And on the voltage topic, I
believe the configuration that we integrate into our products is universal
voltage. So it works from a hundred to five hundred volts — or what is that
range?

Trent: Yes, so it'll do 100 to 347
volt single phase, and also 208 to 230 and 480 volt phase-to-phase.

Adam: Cool. So it is very turnkey from
a power standpoint.

Operating Temperature

Adam: Operating temperature — it
pretty much follows what a fixture would follow. It's minus 40 C, and the
ceiling is 60 or 70 degrees Celsius?

Trent: It's actually 75.

Adam: 75 — even better. So if the
fixture can operate in a particular application, odds are the motion control
will as well.

Coverage Area

Adam: When I talked to our sales team
before we jumped on the podcast, one of the questions they had that comes up
quite a bit is the standard coverage area. I know that can change a little bit
for high-bay applications versus outdoor pole-mounted applications, and there
are different covers and lenses and optics we can use. But standard coverage
area at, say, a 30-foot mounting height — do we have a rule of thumb on what
that might be?

Trent: At about a 30-foot mounting
height, you'd have an 80-foot diameter coverage. At 40-foot, it's about a
100-foot diameter coverage.

Lens Selection

Adam: Just from a math standpoint, I
assume that percentage coverage area drops off quite a bit if it's at, say, 10
or 20 feet?

Trent: Yeah, if it's below 20 feet we
would probably recommend a different lens. These are interchangeable lenses —
they just pop off; you put on a different lens and it handles different
mounting heights.

Mounting Heights

Adam: So as a rule of thumb, 20 foot
and below might be one lens, and then from there 20 to 40 feet would be a
second lens?

Trent: Right. And for high-bay
applications, it's the same scenario. They actually work better indoor than
outdoor, just because of some light and whatnot for picking up motion. But it's
the same mounting heights. There's also a low-bay lens that covers 8 to 12
feet. So 8 to 12 feet is one lens, 12 to 20 feet is another, and then 20 to 40
is another.

IP Rating

Adam: Ingress protection — what's the
IP rating?

Trent: IP66.

Adam: Okay, so it can get wet — it can
take a jet of water.

Trent: Yeah.

Title 24 Compliance

Adam: Cool. Quick note on Title 24 —
we don't need to get into too many details on this podcast, but it is generally
compliant with Title 24 in California. I'm not an expert on that particular
compliance, but I believe it requires fixtures to have two types of lighting
controls. In this case it would be photo sensing and motion sensing. We've had
contractors that have used our fixtures with these integrated on them to meet
those standards.

The App

Adam: As far as the application or the
software is concerned, what does that look like for customers? It's a free app
on the App Store?

Trent: Yeah, it's free. Anybody can
download it on an iPhone or Android device. There are four simple icons on the
landing page, and you can just go into device profiles and create a profile for
your fixtures, save it if you want, and then just program it when you detect
your devices.

Bluetooth

Adam: Is this part always giving off a
Bluetooth signal? So it must be powered all the time for wireless, and then
once you have the app, the app automatically detects it? Or is there some type
of on/off wireless system?

Trent: Typically the Bluetooth
functionality will stop after a certain number of days. I believe it's about
seven days from when it's initially powered on, so that other people who have
the app can't mess with it. You can also create passwords for your fixtures, so
that you're the only one that can make changes to it in the future.

Adam: So what happens after that
initial period if they want to make setting adjustments?

Trent: You can cycle the power, and
it'll restart that seven days.

Power Cycling

Adam: So if the system gets turned on
and off — the entire lighting system input power — obviously if the system is
shut off it's not powered, there's no signal. The next time it turns back on
it'll be powered. So I would imagine a highway application where fixtures are
running 24/7, they're always powered on, so that would be a case where it would
automatically shut off the Bluetooth over a period of time?

Trent: Yeah. For a parking lot, if
it's working properly, it probably gets power-cycled every single day.

Adam: Possibly. I mean, if this is
doing the on/off, this will always have power, and this is turning the fixture
on and off.

Trent: That's true. Yep.

Adam: So what does the power cycle
look like, then? Would you go to the panel that's feeding the power to, say, a
parking lot to shut the whole circuit down?

Trent: Yeah, shut the breaker off.

Adam: Okay, that makes sense.

Support

Adam: Anything else we want to mention
about this product? I guess one of the important things to make note of is, if
there are setting questions or setting adjustments, we have an application
engineering team that can support our sales team and our sales reps. So if
people do have questions, we're happy to help out. Once a contractor or an
end-user does a couple of jobs with this product, it's not like the settings
are changing constantly, so that knowledge base can be used on other products.
But anything else from a support standpoint?

Trent: The app itself is very
intuitive. There are a lot of descriptions on the app itself, so when you go
into a setting, it describes everything that setting controls. It's just easier
for the end user to use.

Adam: Easy is good. Yeah, alright man
— well, thank you.