As well as individual control, DALI also supports two new concepts called Scenes and Groups. These concepts allow for the control of several different DALI devices with the use of one command.
- Learn about DALI
- Why choose DALI?
- DALI features & information
- DALI installation requirements
- DALI-2
- DALI scenes & groups
- GTIN / Serial numbers
- Addressing
- Safety lighting
- DALI speed
- DALI applications
- DALI memory
- DALI for buildings
- DALI for electricians
- DALI for consultants
- DALI for installers
- DALI emergency: What & why
- DALI emergency: Features
- DALI emergency: As a standalone solution
Scenes and Groups with DALI
Scenes
A scene is a configurable arc level that can be applied to Electronic Control Gear(ECG). An ECG can have up to 12 scene-values. Scenes can be given a label for each scene for each DALI group. When a scene command is sent across the DALI line, every DALI device receives the command and checks it’s memory. If it has a stored action the DALI device will perform the action, otherwise, it will ignore the command.
You can read about how to create scenes using zencontrol here.
HINT: Think of a scene as a setting; for example in a meeting room you may want the lighting to have different settings for different tasks: meeting, presentation, video presentation, lunch.
Groups
Groups allow multiple DALI Devices on the same line to be grouped together which allows the devices to perform an action together.
Each DALI device can be assigned membership to a group or multiple groups. This grouping allows commands to be sent out in groups with all members of the group reacting to one individual group command. If a device is not part of the group it will be ignored.
Applying groups and scenes
Traditional systems of lighting control do not always understand the application of groups and scenes. Many systems originally used each DALI device as an individual lighting channel, which is a slow and messy method.
Have you ever seen a room of lights turn on one by one? This is most likely a system that uses channel control and not group or scene control as was designed into DALI. Some system providers will also say that DALI’s communication speed is slow, this is normally because they have taken the channel approach to DALI.
For example, if we compared a channel based system to a proper DALI control of a group of 20 light fittings, the channel based system would have to issue 20 individual commands, where the correct method would use one group command, achieving the goal 20x faster. It is recommend when selecting a DALI control system, that you ensure you decide on one which fully supports DALI groups and scenes (you would be amazed how many system providers still do not use the correct method, and blame their poor implementation on DALI.)
HINT: Group devices together into rooms or areas to perform functions easier.
Switches
With its practically unlimited control our switches can be configured to preform almost any task, responding to scene and group commands.
