What does smart lighting do in a Gig Harbor home?

Why does lighting matter more in Gig Harbor?

Because the houses are built for the view, and the view brings glare, heat and long dark winters. Waterfront and hillside homes in Gig Harbor face west over the harbor or the Narrows. So afternoon sun floods the main room, and the same windows go black by 4:30 in December. Smart lighting from Rivas Technology Group fixes both: the electric light follows the day, and the shades manage the daylight. Here is what the system is made of.

What does Pure Smart Lighting bring?

Fixtures that change color temperature and keypads that look like part of the room. Pure Smart Lighting makes tunable-white fixtures and low-profile keypads in designer finishes, and integrates with Control4, so its scenes join the rest of the house. In practice:

• Scenes instead of switches. "Dinner", "Relax", "Movie" and "Off" on one keypad, each setting every fixture in the room.
• Light that follows the day. Cooler and brighter in the morning, warmer and dimmer in the evening, changed gradually on a schedule so you never see it move.
• Adaptive brightness. A daylight sensor holds the room at a set level as the sky changes.
• Voice and app. Control4 or Josh.ai by voice, and the app when you are away.

Fixtures, keypads and the wireless dimmers that retrofit an existing house are on the smart lighting page.

How does Control4 tie it together?

By making lighting one part of a scene that includes the shades, the locks and the alarm. One button labeled "Goodnight" turns off every light, lowers the shades, locks the doors and arms the Ajax system. Another labeled "Welcome Home" lights the path from the garage and starts the playlist.

Control4 works with 25,000+ third-party products (Control4), so the fixtures, shades and thermostat you choose can all be on it. Lighting scenes run from keypads, touch screens, the app or Josh.ai voice control. They run locally on the controller, so a dropped internet connection does not stop the evening scene. Details on the Control4 page.

Why add PowerShades?

Because daylight off the water is the strongest light in the house, and it needs control too. PowerShades roller shades come in true PoE, wired and battery versions, indoors and outdoors, and integrate with Control4 so they sit on the same keypad as the lights. A daylight scene lowers the west shades at three in the afternoon and raises them for sunset; a movie scene drops them with the lights. Battery motors mean a retrofit with no wiring; PoE means one Ethernet cable carries power and control in a new build. The full range is on the shades page.

How is it designed for a Gig Harbor house?

Room by room, from a walk-through with you. We map the windows that face the water, the rooms that are used at night, the fixtures worth keeping and the keypads a guest needs to understand. New construction lets us centralize the wiring; a remodel or an existing home gets wireless dimmers in the existing boxes and fixtures swapped in phases. Our own team installs, programs and calibrates every scene, then adjusts it after you have lived with it for a week.

What drives the cost?

The number of rooms on the system, the number of fixtures replaced with tunable ones, the number of keypads, and whether shades are part of the job. A main-floor package with keypads in the kitchen, great room and entry is the usual first phase; whole-home lighting with shades on every west window is a larger one. The instant quote gives a figure in minutes.

Need it installed?

Rivas Technology Group designs and installs smart lighting, motorized shades and Control4 in Gig Harbor, about 45 minutes from our office in Kent. See the Gig Harbor page, or book a lighting walk-through.