I’m hoping someone can help me clarify my thinking on lighting.
I’m working through the lighting plan for my new apartment and am trying to rationalise the lighting selection and also trying to understand the quality constraints.
Here’s the current (very rough) plan involving many LED strips (the marked yellow bits): https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/0B5wjuCDgARyRZFI2VUNWSFJDZTA
Assumption 1: It seems like the right way to power these strips is using DALI ballasts/drivers/transformers (probably driven through a DALI/KNX bridge).
Assumption 2: LED strips seem like the right way to do background lighting. I’ve not been the greatest fan of LED strips until attending the Light Expo in Frankfurt. Some of the vendors were showing off LED strips with good CRI values. Light that would make an apartment feel less like a cheap disco and more like a home.
So I’d like to put together the shopping list of LED strips, DALI ballasts, and DALI downlighters. And then weave in the right OpenHAB rules.
I’m stuck at the point of understanding the tradeoff between installing White/warm-white, RGBW and RGBWW LED strips?
Is it realistic to expect good, natural light from a RGBW[W] based system? I’m guessing DT8’s “tunable white” goes somewhere along the lines of this but would appreciate other’s experiences before I invest into DALI.
I’m also stuck at the point of knowing which DALI controller to use. I’ve seen DALI transformers and DALI controllers and DALI ballasts. Would I be right in assuming that I need:
- one DALI controller (that will be controlled by KNX)
- one DALI transformer to power the DALI bus
- per LED strip, a DALI ballast ?
And finally - DALI flicker: Is 1KHz PWM for dimming etc decent? Is LED flicker at low light levels still an issue?
So to tie this all back to OpenHAB, I’m keen to avoid a HUE-like LED strip and go with a more open system that can then be controlled in OpenHAB (for example, detect motion, turn on passage lights in proportion to how late it is at night - don’t blind me going to the toilet).
Long and rambling but would really appreciate any pointers on putting together a lighting system based on DALI.
Edit: are there any plans for an OpenHAB DALI binding?