Overview
With the recent launch of Pharos Expert, an all-new, practical and straightforward control solution, lighting projects everywhere can benefit from 20 years of Pharos expertise in dynamic architectural lighting. Centred around a single, reliable, set-and-forget controller with simple configuration and guided programming, Expert makes light of it.
Expert is a new DMX and DALI control range from Pharos Architectural Controls, designed specifically for the architectural lighting market. Expert fulfils the growing need for a practical, straightforward, and cost-effective lighting controller for DMX and DALI fixtures.
The Expert range showcases thoughtful product design, focusing on the requirements of specifiers, electricians, installers, programmers, designers, and the end user. With Expert, Pharos has created a simple to specify, simple to commission and simple to programme dynamic lighting control solution.
Design and innovation
Expert Control is a compact DIN rail unit with out-of-the-box test modes and installation-friendly connectors. It provides 1024 DMX channels and one DALI bus – ideal for architectural lighting that requires the benefits of dynamic movement and colour in a practical package. Integrating both DMX and DALI natively, and seamlessly outputting to both protocols, it allows designers to manage all lighting in the space at once.
Using DMX control for enhancing the visual environment is highly advantageous; providing high capacity, reliable and fine resolution control of luminaire output to give designers the sensitivity they need to set intensity, colour and speed of effects and transitions.
The companion 5″ touchscreen wall station; the Expert Touch has a seamless, uninterrupted glass front plate, and provides an elegant interface for projects that require frequent user interaction. Automatically generated pages give users control of lighting, allowing them to activate scenes and adjust intensity and colour.
Expert commissioning software guides users through setting up and creating their lighting design, with helpers and clear, easy-to-follow processes. This desktop app is a brand-new programming platform for Windows and macOS, designed from scratch to give users just the tools they need. It offers an innovative way of scheduling and triggering lighting based around an intuitive Spaces-based approach which simplifies managing installation, fixtures and lighting looks.
Impact and sustainability
Longevity and reliability are at the heart of Pharos hardware development, and innovative product design includes future-proofing and backward compatibility to reduce obsolescence. Expert promises reliable, solid-state, long-life, low power products, enabling long-life, low power eco-friendly LED fixture installations. Global location settings enhance scheduling around local daylight times as well as activities to enable lighting to come on only when required, and only at the levels needed to save power and avoid light pollution.
Expert is now fully compatible with Pharos Cloud; a secure remote management solution that allows installers and integrators to control and update lighting installations from any device, anywhere in the world. Pharos Cloud saves time, cost, and the environmental travel impact of repeated site visits.
Final word
Rather than a one-size-fits-all controller, Expert is specifically aimed at architectural installations that require decorative, colourful and dynamic lighting solutions common in the ‘architainment’ sector, but without the complexity that comes with the show control requirements of themed entertainment. The Pharos team was inspired by new ideas for making programming more accessible and less intimidating, and excited by original solutions to simplify conditional triggering and a new spaces-based approach to programming.**
