Category: Occupancy Sensors
Occupancy Sensors For Today’s Offices
Being Green and Saving energy is a big topic for companies. Not only because it saves companies money but also because it’s the right thing to do. And let’s face it, it’s great PR for them – consumers like to know that the companies they buy from, care about the environment.
Hands down the best way to save energy is to not use any at all – call it light abstinence.
And one of the things that can really help is occupancy sensors. They’ve been around for some time, but newer versions have taken the technology one step further, to create a more user friendly product.
Occupancy sensors work the same as a normal wall switch. Except in their case, they can detect when nothing is moving in the room. At that point, they shut off power to the lights.
There are some minor drawbacks.
One of the most annoying things that can happen is when we’re in a bathroom that has an occupancy sensor in it, and the dumb thing shuts off after a few minutes of inactivity, while we’re still there, behind a door. Hello! I’m right here!
Well no more going potty in the dark. (My wife claims I’ve been doing this since we got married.)
New sensors incorporate sound sensitive technolgy that reacts not only to the infared heat of a body when it walks into the room, but also to a person in a bathroom stall yelling, “HEY!! Who shut off the lights?!”
One thing to consider – and this relates to a previous post – when installing occupancy sensors in bathrooms that have fluorescent Lights, make sure you set the sensor to turn off on the longest time available on the unit. When the lights turn off and on a lot, the life of the lamp is greatly reduced AND people get stuck in stalls without lighting – kind of a double whammy.
Jack Huff, along with his son Brian and wife Sue, owns and manages Adventure Lighting in Des Moines, Iowa. For more information, go to www.adventurelighting.com
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