I installed the Philips Hue system at home to manage my lighting with the Hue Bridge and Philips HUE bulbs. I then connected my Hue Bridge to my Alexa voice assistant to allow me to control my lighting by voice .
It's quite unusual to talk to your house to control its lights, but you get used to it and it quickly becomes very practical; whether it's to dim the living room lights when you start a film or to turn off all the lights in the house before leaving home.
However, I recently moved into a new apartment that I rent and my new living room has a chandelier with very specific bulbs. No way to reuse my traditional Philips HUE bulbs.
So I thought about installing one of our micromodules behind the switch that controls the lamp, unfortunately there was no neutral going through the switch.
So I decided to install the module directly on the power supply of the lamp. So I started to disassemble this famous chandelier and then I realized that it was connected via a DCL.
What is a DCL box?
A DCL box, also called a Luminaire Connection Device, is an element used in the field of electricity to connect light fixtures (lamps or lighting devices) to the electrical installations of a building, particularly in ceilings.
A major advantage of the DCL box is that it facilitates the replacement of luminaires without requiring intervention on the main electrical circuit, which makes maintenance operations simpler and safer. DCL boxes comply with electrical safety standards and are commonly used in residential, commercial and industrial buildings for the installation of luminaires.
The DCL NodOn module
At NodOn, we decided to develop a somewhat special DCL that allows you to connect our Multifunction Module and thus make lighting connected in a very simple way.
A godsend for me! So I equipped myself with a Zigbee Multifunction Module , which is directly compatible with Philips HUE and one of our latest DCL prototypes.
The installation of the module in the DCL is very simple; you just have to screw the terminal block onto the connector provided for this purpose. Then all I had to do was change the installed DCL with my new DCL by connecting the 3 cables coming out of the ceiling light.
Once the DCL was installed with the Zigbee Multifunction Module, I put the lamp back in place and turned the power back on via the circuit breaker. When the power is turned on, the Zigbee Module searches for a network for 15 minutes. So I started the pairing from my Philips Hue application, my module was quickly detected, I was able to rename it in my application and then assigned it to my "Living Room" room.
And there you have it! Since my Hue App is linked with Alexa, I can directly control my module by voice and I no longer need to get up from the couch to turn off the lights. :-)
Learn more about the NodOn products used
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