ChrisWalker
Active Member
I'm not sure if this is the appropriate forum for this, but I thought it would be of interest to everyone here 
Z-Wave has become quite a staple in the home control industry, and has proven to be quite reliable. Apparently, the light commercial and industrial sectors have noticed, and this has led to the introduction of the first commercial/industrial (and large residential) Z-Wave product...
Cooper Lighting today revealed their new ThinkWatt brand. This line consists of three initial products:
1. ThinkWatt Z-Wave Device
2. ThinkWatt Bridge
3. ThinkWatt installer software for PCs and PDAs
This is a really cool new system. The device itself is basically a motion (occupancy) and photo (ambient light level) sensor hooked up to a relay and a dimmer. You put it on flourescent lights, HID lighting, lighting circuits, etc. It's meant mostly for the commercial and industrial world.
Now, here's where things get really cool: you can hook up a bunch of these in your office building to manage energy usage on your hallway lights (or gymansium lights in a school), and they work seamlessly with your Aspire RF or other Z-Wave devices. Each device can control one fixture, or it can control an entire circuit of many thousands of watts.
Each of these devices can additionally be configured into one or more zones. You enable the motion and/or photo sensors in the devices you want to sense occupancy/ambient light, and then they will turn on the whole "bank" of lights (their zone) whenever those are tripped. You can control on/off lights, dimmable ballasts, or hi/lo lights (which stay on all the time, but at dim levels when nobody's there). You can also have overlapping zones. And you can reconfigure the zones on the fly--it's _really_ cool.
Additionally, the ThinkWatt Bridge uses our ThinkBox core software to allow you to bridge together two or more networks to exceed the ~230 device limit. So you can hook up 2,000 lights throughout your warehouse, hotel, or very large residence, and any device can communicate with, monitor, or control any other device. You can also use these with other Z-Wave devices, like the Aspire RF switches, to create "large" Z-Wave networks in your home or office.
Of course, you can also use the Z-Wave PC SDK to talk to all of lights in a larger network as if they were on one network. It's completely seamless. This gives a huge opportunity for the I.T. guys out there to help their companies save big money on energy and write their own code to do security logging, custom lighting schedules, etc. The standard $69 PC SDK is all you need.
Anyway, it's really cool to see new and exciting uses for the technology out there, and to see new product lines emerge on Z-Wave.
Finally, the installer software is very simple and easy to use. It's based on our ThinkEssentials product, and includes a ton of features unique to the bridge and the ThinkWatt environment (such as multi-network bridging, motion/photo sensor zoning, ballast configuration properties, etc.). It can set up any other Z-Wave devices as well.
In the end, you can now talk your employer into putting Z-Wave to use at work, save some energy, and have a really cool light switch or two in your office.
Chris
Z-Wave has become quite a staple in the home control industry, and has proven to be quite reliable. Apparently, the light commercial and industrial sectors have noticed, and this has led to the introduction of the first commercial/industrial (and large residential) Z-Wave product...
Cooper Lighting today revealed their new ThinkWatt brand. This line consists of three initial products:
1. ThinkWatt Z-Wave Device
2. ThinkWatt Bridge
3. ThinkWatt installer software for PCs and PDAs
This is a really cool new system. The device itself is basically a motion (occupancy) and photo (ambient light level) sensor hooked up to a relay and a dimmer. You put it on flourescent lights, HID lighting, lighting circuits, etc. It's meant mostly for the commercial and industrial world.
Now, here's where things get really cool: you can hook up a bunch of these in your office building to manage energy usage on your hallway lights (or gymansium lights in a school), and they work seamlessly with your Aspire RF or other Z-Wave devices. Each device can control one fixture, or it can control an entire circuit of many thousands of watts.
Each of these devices can additionally be configured into one or more zones. You enable the motion and/or photo sensors in the devices you want to sense occupancy/ambient light, and then they will turn on the whole "bank" of lights (their zone) whenever those are tripped. You can control on/off lights, dimmable ballasts, or hi/lo lights (which stay on all the time, but at dim levels when nobody's there). You can also have overlapping zones. And you can reconfigure the zones on the fly--it's _really_ cool.
Additionally, the ThinkWatt Bridge uses our ThinkBox core software to allow you to bridge together two or more networks to exceed the ~230 device limit. So you can hook up 2,000 lights throughout your warehouse, hotel, or very large residence, and any device can communicate with, monitor, or control any other device. You can also use these with other Z-Wave devices, like the Aspire RF switches, to create "large" Z-Wave networks in your home or office.
Of course, you can also use the Z-Wave PC SDK to talk to all of lights in a larger network as if they were on one network. It's completely seamless.
This gives a huge opportunity for the I.T. guys out there to help their companies save big money on energy and write their own code to do security logging, custom lighting schedules, etc. The standard $69 PC SDK is all you need.Anyway, it's really cool to see new and exciting uses for the technology out there, and to see new product lines emerge on Z-Wave.
Finally, the installer software is very simple and easy to use. It's based on our ThinkEssentials product, and includes a ton of features unique to the bridge and the ThinkWatt environment (such as multi-network bridging, motion/photo sensor zoning, ballast configuration properties, etc.). It can set up any other Z-Wave devices as well.
In the end, you can now talk your employer into putting Z-Wave to use at work, save some energy, and have a really cool light switch or two in your office.
Chris
