With their spacious 5,000 square-foot home, Tom and Joyce needed a lighting control solution that was easy to operate and maintain and that didn’t require running new wires: They wanted to avoid paying the nearly $100,000 they spent on a hard-wired system in their previous home, a system fraught with problems in design and difficulties in maintenance. As Tom and Joyce considered a wireless solution, they learned that a friend had INSTEON installed in his home and was thrilled with its reliability and ease of use, so they decided to give it a try. Since their friend had a smaller home, Tom and Joyce were at first concerned that INSTEON might not work as well for their needs as it did in their friend’s application. Once they received their INSTEON products, Tom and Joyce brought in an installer. While it might have taken a typical homeowner a couple of weekends to complete the installation, the INSTEON-certified installer had them up and running within a couple of days. Before the installer left, he gave Joyce a few tips on programming scenes, showing her “how to link and set up scenes and do all that fun stuff” so that she wouldn’t be dependent on a professional to make scene or dimming changes whenever she wants. Now Tom and Joyce enjoy in-wall keypads, hand-held remotes and complete control over every light in their house. They shared with us that, their INSTEON network works “really, really well.” By design, INSTEON networks are ideal for larger homes, because they actually become more reliable with every added device. As Tom says, “It’s pretty incredible what you can do for this price; such a great value that you don’t have to live in a multi-million dollar house to be able to afford this.”
Entry/Stairway
Welcoming guests into their home has never been easier for Tom and Joyce: INSTEON has given them the power to turn on all the entryway lights, exterior lights and the lighted glass sculpture atop their elegant winding staircase with the press of a button. Arriving home and walking from room to room has never been more practical: Their entryway keypads have a scene for each of the adjacent areas of the house so they can turn off lights behind them and avoid fumbling around for light switches in dark rooms. In their entryway, Tom and Joyce use SwitchLinc Dimmers for their overhead and accent lights, KeypadLinc Dimmers at the entry points for scene control and an ApplianceLinc plug-in module for the lighted glass sculpture. Best of all, every switch is labled with custom etching, so both they and their guests know exactly which lights they are turning on.
“I highly recommend a system like this. It’s user-friendly; it’s convenient. I truly love the idea of being able to create scenes to turn a light on or off anywhere, conveniently.” – Joyce
Dining Room
Nothing creates ambiance and compliments and accents a beautiful marble fireplace quite like great lighting. When entertaining dinner guests, Tom and Joyce use INSTEON to spend more time socializing and less time managing their lights. They instantly create the perfect mood with their “Dining” scene, which sets the wall sconces and overhead lights to medium brightness and dims the surrounding rooms, focusing energy and attention to the dining room. With a tap on their RemoteLinc, they can turn off all the kitchen lights from the dinner table, saying to their guests, “Let’s eat.” Tom and Joyce use SwitchLinc Dimmers for their sconces and overhead lights, a KeypadLinc Dimmers for scene control on either side of the dining room, and a black RemoteLinc for easy remote control of all lighting without leaving the dinner table.
Kitchen
For Tom and Joyce, the kitchen is not only a place to cook, but a breakfast nook, a wet bar, and a path to the garage. They use INSTEON in this room to save a few trips across the kitchen and a few dollars on their electric bill by knowing their lights are off when they leave. In multi-story homes especially, making sure all the lights are off can be very tedious and is frequently neglected. Tom and Joyce use their away scene to turn off every light in the house, with the exception of a few dim night lights. Also, from inside the kitchen, Joyce can see that she’s left the outdoor lights on and can turn them off without going back outside. Tom and Joyce use SwitchLinc Dimmers for their overhead halogen lights and breakfast nook chandelier and KeypadLinc Dimmers for their under-cabinet lighting and scene control from several different locations in the kitchen.
“I love the remote ability I have; that’s a fantastic feature” – Joyce
“I really love having keypads for everything where you can just come in the kitchen and you have a scene, you don’t have to worry. We’ve got the away scene, we know we have the light on in the entry, we have the kitchen light on, and we have a small light on in the family room, for when we’re away. I love the away scene.” – Joyce
Bedroom
When Tom and Joyce turn in for the night, they rest a little easier knowing they have INSTEON controlling their lights. They feel safer knowing that if they hear a strange noise during the middle of the night, they can turn on every light in the house, both deterring intruders and exposing dark corners. They feel more relaxed knowing that they won’t have to get out of bed to turn off the lights in the rest of the house. Tom and Joyce’s favorite scenes are the “Tom” and “Joyce” buttons on their bathroom keypad: Since they like their bathroom lights at different levels, they know they can always tap the button to activate the perfect bathroom lighting for them. Tom and Joyce use SwitchLinc Dimmers for their overhead lights, LampLinc plug-in dimmers for their plug-in lamps, KeypadLinc Dimmers for scene control, and a KeypadLinc mounted in a plug-in tabletop enclosure for easy bedside access.
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