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Lighting

Lighting engineering for smart homes

How Smart Citizens engineers scene-based lighting for UAE villas and apartments — circuits, drivers, dimming curves and commissioning.

Best practices

  • Design scenes first, then circuits
  • Reserve one spare dimmer per major zone
  • Label every load at the DB and at the switch
  • Commission at night, adjust, re-commission at day

Common mistakes

  • Mixing dimmable and non-dimmable fixtures on one circuit
  • Assuming any LED driver is dimmable without confirming
  • Forgetting minimum load requirements on trailing-edge dimmers
  • Using a single scene for both entertaining and reading

Engineering checklist

  • Circuit schedule aligned to scene design, not room count
  • Constant-voltage vs constant-current drivers selected per fixture
  • Neutral wire at every switch position
  • Dedicated dimmer per fixture group, no shared loads
  • Colour temperature agreed with client before purchase
  • As-built lighting drawing signed off before commissioning

Recommended workflow

  1. Client scene interview
  2. Fixture selection with driver spec
  3. Circuit + DB schedule
  4. First-fix wiring inspection
  5. Second-fix fixture install
  6. Scene programming
  7. Night + day commissioning walk-through
  8. Handover documentation

Related standards

water and electricity wiring regulations
IEC 60598
IEC 62386 (DALI)