Crestron's New LED Lights Auto-Adjust To Your Circadian Cycles

Smart home specialist Crestron is getting into the LED light space, with a new connected fixture that not only adjusts for color and warmth, but can intelligently adjust to better suit circadian rhythms. Designed to integrate with the Crestron Home system – which also includes multimedia distribution, HVAC control, shades, and more – the new Tunable LED Light Fixtures can be adjusted manually, but arguably it's when they're set to their smart auto mode that they could be most useful.

Color-changing LED bulbs aren't exactly new, of course, nor light fixtures which can adjust their white light temperature. They'll even in some cases work with Crestron Home, either natively or through third-party drivers. Philips Hue bulbs and lamps, for example, can be interwoven with Crestron lighting scenes.

What Crestron set out to do, though, is make the de-facto reference design for tunable LED lights. Control over hue, saturation, color temperature, and intensity are table-stakes: what should help set the Crestron fixtures apart are things like the their ability to dim far lower than most LED bulbs without flickering, as low as 0.1% in fact.

They're also designed to be modular. Crestron will have different shapes of frame – square or round – with different finishes; there'll be support for adjustable angles, so you can wash a wall or pinpoint a piece of artwork; and, you'll be able to control the spread of the light, too. One aspect worth noting is that they're really designed for new-builds: these aren't just color-changing bulbs which screw into existing cans in the ceiling.

Unsurprisingly, homeowners will be able to trigger different whole-room (or whole-home) lighting scenes through the Crestron Home app, a touchscreen, or a programmable light switch. That could include different hues and brightnesses, and the system already supports having a single button that launches different scenes depending on the time of day. The same button which pulls up a bright scene during the daytime could trigger a more atmospheric one in the evening, for example.

Within the app, there'll be control over individual fixtures, too. Those settings can then be spread across multiple units, making custom creation of scenes more straightforward, and not requiring an integrator's assistance.

However, Crestron is also supporting lighting scenes that tie into circadian cycles. The lights could start out dim and warm, for example, brighten and get cooler through the day, before dimming and warming again through the evening, much in the way that the Sun's light does. The result, Crestron says, is a more natural experience in the home.

Crestron

With a Crestron SolarSync sensor – developed initially for a private commercial client that wanted matching indoor and outdoor light for its retail locations – the temperature of the LEDs can automatically match what's happening outside. At any point, meanwhile, a specific scene such as for parties or a movie night can be loaded; when the circadian setting is reestablished, it automatically picks up at the appropriate levels for that time of day.

Crestron

With each – trim and shape depending – priced at around $900, some potential customers are likely to pinpoint a few, key areas of the home for Crestron's LED Light Fixtures. That, the company points out, is in line with high-end recessed LEDs of this sort, though it concedes that there will undoubtedly be some who decide not to spread them through the entire home. Or, for that matter, who actually need them in every room.

For that, Crestron is working with a number of third-party fixture manufacturers, who'll have compatible lights under their LED Partner Program. On the one hand, that paves the way for models which perhaps only offer tunable white light rather than a full color array, and so which could be a little cheaper for spaces that don't need the rainbow option. It's worth noting that even a bulb that can't change temperature could be integrated into a circadian cycle scene, its brightness changing accordingly. 

With Crestron only offering a single, recessed fixture to begin with, its partners will also be responsible for other lighting types too. Since Crestron's LED Light Fixture is only rated for indoor use (including bathrooms), it'll be up to third-parties to deliver garden lighting, for example.

Availability for the new fixtures is expected in summer 2022, and though demand for smart home tech has spiked over the past couple of years, Crestron says it's confident it has manufacturing lined up to meet predicted demand. While deliveries are still some way out, that should give time for Crestron integrators and dealers to get to grips with the fixtures, and begin adding them to their new builds.