Home / Smart Home / Smart Home technology knows when the sun goes down
Big deal, you say, any photo-electric eye can do the same thing. Well, yes and no. While a photocell has its uses, it’s still a pretty dumb technology, limiting your options to “on” at dark and “off” when it gets light out. That leaves a lot of room for error, and can waste a lot of electricity. A traditional time-clock enables you to narrow the window of time your outdoor lights are on, but because sunset changes every day (and not to mention problems with power outages), you need to change your time-clock settings periodically. The more time-clocks you have, the more of a problem that can be. I’ve never been very good at staying on top of that, which explains why every now and again I would be up in the middle of the night and notice that my landscape lighting was coming on at 2 in the morning.
My OmniPro II home automation system solved that problem for me. The OmniPro II enables you to enter the latitude coordinates of your home. (I went online and found the coordinates of the Coast Guard buoy “SI” that sits 1/2 mile off the Shark River inlet, almost directly east of my house, and used that latitude coordinate). Programmed with this information, the system can automatically calculate sunrise and sunset. So whenever I program a lighting routine on my system, I have the option of choosing a time based on sunset or sunrise. For example, because it’s usually still pretty bright out at sunset, I typically set my outdoor lighting programs to turn on at a half hour after sunset each day. I choose a set time — say, 11:00 p.m. on weekdays (and midnight on weekends) — for when the lights go off. Once you set the program, you never need to revisit it. The “on” time adjusts automatically every day as the days get longer and shorter. And because the system has a battery backup, not even a power outage can knock the OmniPro II off its game. Now, I never have to worry about readjusting the time-clocks as the days get longer and shorter, or settle for leaving my lights on all night. So, the system has given me one less thing to deal with around the house, and helps me avoid wasting electricity.
