Is anybody here familiar with this? It looks like a scam to me.
The Light Controller That Works Like an MP3 BY Ariel SchwartzFri Sep 17, 2010
LumiSmart lighting controller
What do MP3s and light bulbs have in common? Quite a lot, it turns out, when the light bulbs are attached to a LumiSmart Intelligent Lighting Controller. The shoebox-sized solid state controller, developed by Cavet Technologies, costs $2,000, takes 20 minutes to install (with help from an electrician), and cuts electricity consumption by 30% to 40%.
The controller works by cutting off power to light bulbs for nanoseconds at a time--faster than a light or ballast can figure out. It's similar to compression algorithms used in MP3s, where cutting out select bits to decrease file size still maintains the file as a whole.
On Sat, 25 Sep 2010 18:28:48 -0400, Frank wrote Re Re: Looks like a scam:
Yes, I think the CFLs make much more sense; particularly since the "lumismart" device would have to be applied to the entire house. I wonder what effect would it have on non-light loads?
It obviously would reduce power consumption by 30-40% -- which means, in the case of resistance heating, for example -- that it also reduces power *output* by the same 30-40%. Since the amount of energy needed to heat the house, dry laundry, cook, etc. doesn't change, reducing the power available for the task means increasing the time required to do it, meaning, for example, that your furnace will have to run 43-67% longer to keep your home warm. It will take
43-67% longer to make toast, brew coffee, boil water for tea, cook your meals, or dry your clothes. In short, it won't save a damn thing on anything *but* lighting -- and probably only on *incandescent* lighting at that.
Another poster cited the figure of lighting being 10% of total electricity cost - that depends a lot on (a) the type of lighting, and (b) what other purposes electricity is used for. With a gas boiler, gas oven, gas water heater, and gas clothes dryer, incandescent lighting represented over 30% of my total cost for electricity. Switching over to CFLs reduced that to around
10-15%. In a home that had CFLs to begin with, and electric heat, water heating, cooking, and dryer, I'd imagine the proportion to be a lot less than that. But let's be generous to the purveyors of this device, and assume that it's 20% on average. Further assume an average total cost of $125/month. That's $25/month for lighting. If this device can save 40%, that's $10/month, making it 200 months = 17 years before you recover the cost of purchasing it. Add another couple hundred bucks or so for installation by a licensed electrician, and you're looking at a payback period of pretty near twenty years. At the lower end of their projection (30%), the period approaches 25 years. And if your lighting costs are only 10% of your total, instead of 20%, it's nearly 50 years.
LumiSmart is an intelligent lighting controller that is designed for use in commercial / industrial buildings, not homes. The device operates on patented adaptive micro-processor controlled wave-form modification. The device enables large companies to dramatically cut there power consumption without retrofitting lights or rewiring which leads to costly business interuption.
LumiSmart is currently being rolled out by numerous utilities in 21 countries. Your local utility will contribute up to $1000 per circuit where LumiSmart is deployed.
The product is manufactured in Toronto, Canada, is UL listed and is currently available for commercial properties. The device is also smart grid upgradeable for demand response and remote management. Do more homework on the device, their are many third party reports on the web and you can check with your local electrical distributor for availability.
The Lumismart is an intelligent lighting controller for commercial, Industrial and Retail locations. It uses waveform modification to remove sections of power from the electrical sine wave. It is connected between the electrical lighting circuit breaker and a dedicated fluorescent lighting circuit, in essence dimming florescent lights that were not originally designed to dim. This device is not intended for residential home use, as lighting is a small portion of the actual power cost and most residential electrical circuits are not dedicated to lighting.
The product has been validated by lighting test houses around the world, both in North America and Europe, as well as at Underwriter laboratories. Furthermore, just this week, Cavet Technologies were announced as winners of the the Deloitte Clean 15 (Fast 50) companies in Canada with the Lumismart ILC. The concept of waveform modification to reduce lighting associated costs is not new and has been out for many years. However, Lumismart increases the amount of potential savings by over double, and is designed more as a commodity purchase rather than system sale.
I trust this answers your questions, however you can find more information at
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Regards
Simon Jerome VP Global Sales Cavet Technologies Inc.
You've been around a.h.r for quite a while, and IMHO asked an honest question. You unfairly got caught up in the annoyance at the parasite site, which I share. But you did not post through the parasite.
My guess is that the manufacturer watches the internet for references to their product, and found a hit at the parasite.
It is possible the 'device' saves power by providing less illumination. It does not make sense for your house and, according to the mouthpiece, is not intended for residential. I didn't read any of the propaganda and I have no idea if it makes sense anywhere else. I am, in general, skeptical.
Lighting is a *huge* cost for retail businesses -- look around next time you're in Wal-Mart, Home Depot, or any supermarket. Installing one of those gadgets in a Wal-Mart store would probably pay for itself in a matter of months. I imagine that stadiums would benefit considerably too. But as I showed in an earlier post, it's pretty well pointless for residential use.
I agree you could reduce cost *IF* you can use a lower lighting level. Would seem like a big box would design the lighting at the level they needed, in which case the 'device' would be pointless. If you had, for example, skylights that added solar light (the Costco I go to does) you could vary the electrical lighting, and some installations do. You couldn't necessarily reduce the lighting on a whole circuit.
And IF the 'device' works, and is cost effective. I have no opinion on that.
.. but probably an incorrect conclusion. If the device can reduce power consumption by 30% while reducing lighting levels by less than that, it's worthwhile.
In most lighting applications, a sufficiently brief interruption of the current will have negligible effect on the light output. Consider an incandescent lamp on a 60Hz AC power source. 120 times a second, the voltage is *zero*. But since it takes longer than 1/120 of a second for the filament to cool to the point where it no longer emits visible light, there's no flicker. It's no stretch to imagine that an electronic controller could chop
30 or 40% out of the total power with nowhere nearly a 30-40% reduction in lighting levels.
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