Tunable White colour temperature control
When you want to build a top class tunable white luminaire, we are the experts. We have a wide range of Tunable White products, developed specifically for dimming and tuning of white colour. Helvar Tunable White iC DALI LED drivers and iC LED modules are the heart of tunable white lighting. Colour temperature control technology is essential for Human Centric Lighting. It supports wellbeing, brings health benefits and increases productivity – and on top, is a beautiful design element. Our drivers can be used in DALI projects as well as with supported wireless lighting control systems.
What is Tunable White Lighting?
Tunable white lighting technology lets you control the light source’s colour temperature output. In other words, mix cool and warm white light. You might have heard about mixing white light, tuneable white, colour temperature control, circadian lighting, human centric lighting or DALI type 8 protocol. All these originate from the same thing: with a control unit, such as a control panel or a lighting control software, you can choose the desired colour temperature anywhere between the specified colour temperature range if your LED driver and modules support that.
CCT stands for Correlated Colour Temperature, which refers to the colour temperature of white light, measured in Kelvin. For example, 3000K is called “warm white” in lighting, giving out a very yellowish shade of white. From human centric lighting point of view, the yellowish colour temperatures refer to sunset and dawn. The higher the degrees Kelvin, the cooler the white colour temperature is. Turning from yellowish white through pure white to bluish white (the coolest) – the brightest time of the day.
Why Tunable White? It looks great. Dynamic lighting creates very different moods for spaces and changes your room’s ambience throughout the day. You can take your room from moody, warm and relaxing into bright, modern and creative in seconds. But more importantly, Tunable White can bring health benefits: It increases productivity and supports circadian rhythm, our in-built body clock.
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Benefits of Using DALI Colour Temperature Control
DALI’s Colour temperature control standard enables you to pick a scene of colour and intensity in one step, vastly decreasing programming time. DALI type 8 (Dt8 or DALI 209) device only needs one DALI address to command two or more output channels (multipath). This greatly reduces the cost of a DALI lighting system. With DALI device type 6 (DT6), Tunable White features require two DALI addresses; a single address, and a single channel.
Human Centric Lighting for Wellbeing
Human Centric Lighting, also called HCL or circadian lighting, is created with tunable white technology, by changing the colour and intensity of white light and designing lighting to support the end-users’ lighting needs.
To enhance our natural circadian rhythms, we need light during the day. Studies of the Circadian Rhythm have shown that the intensity, timing, duration, and wavelength of light can affect the biological clock of humans. We can use warmer, relaxing white light with slightly lower intensity, which helps to calm down when facing high stress. Or we can use cooler white light with higher intensity, to help users energise on early morning or typical workday. Lighting can also be tuned during the day to support more temporary needs.
Read more about Human Centric Lighting at LightingEurope.org