Episode 126 - You Can’t Guess Lighting Levels with Hilary Wainer

Summary

Lighting Controls Podcast
Episode 126 – "You Can’t Guess Lighting Levels" with Hilary Wehner
March 26, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, hosts Ron Kuszmar and C. Webster Marsh are joined by Hilary Wehner, owner of Luxe at Veritas Design, a specialist in architectural lighting with a deep background in theatrical lighting controls. The discussion zeroes in on the increasing complexity of architectural lighting controls, especially in hospitality environments, and why thoughtful design and ongoing communication with all stakeholders is critical. Hilary shares field stories and hard-won insights on why "you can’t guess at lighting levels," how to educate clients, avoid overcomplicating systems, and ensure control systems align with the space’s intent and occupants’ real needs.

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Guest Introduction: Hilary Wehner (02:10)

• Hilary is the owner of Luxe at Veritas Design, with 13 years in business, focusing on hospitality lighting—think hotels, convention spaces, and more.
• Her passion for lighting controls began in 8th grade with a school talent show and was fueled by an early encounter with ETC founder Fred Foster while in high school in Wisconsin.
• Launched her career with an ETC internship via a serendipitous Disney Imagineering connection.
• Transitioned from a theatrical lighting background into architectural lighting, integrating both worlds in her practice.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Increasing Complexity in Lighting Controls (05:42)

• Hilary observes that the industry often “likes to make things more complicated, not less complicated” (05:42).
• Theatrical dimming is often simpler, standardized with DMX/RDM.
• In architecture, there’s a proliferation—phase dimming (forward/reverse), 0-10V, DALI, plus further intricacies within each.
• Move from centralized to decentralized systems increases “stuff”—more peripherals, more coordination, more challenges with aesthetics and space.
  • Hilary: “We’ve gone from centralized dimming to decentralized dimming... you end up with all of these peripherals and more stuff, smaller, more stuff that you got to find a place to put.” (06:40)

2. Knowledge Gaps & the Importance of ‘Shepherding’ (07:14, 09:56)

• Many engineers and designers lack a deep understanding of controls, leading to over-reliance on default approaches or delegating decisions.
• Hilary positions herself as an “interpreter” between stakeholders, shepherding functionality and aesthetics, and guiding crucial decisions, especially for hard-to-define spaces.
  • “Engineers have just thrown their hands up... I end up having to shepherd more... because they don’t understand it.” (08:29)

3. Stakeholder Buy-in & The Programming Reality (09:56, 11:39)

• Hilary’s process is to proactively bring owners/operators through proposed sequences of operations and what’s possible, rather than just asking them what they want—a tactic that provides competitive advantage.
• Buy-in often doesn’t happen until very late (e.g., in hotels, management might not even be on board until a month before opening).
• She advocates for embedding flexibility but not overcomplication, especially with user interfaces and presets.

4. You Can’t Guess Lighting Levels (14:36)

• Memorable Quote:
  • “You can’t just guess at lighting level... No matter how long I’ve been doing this, you cannot guess at lighting levels.” – Hilary Wehner (15:07)
• Predetermined programming without being on-site is ineffective—sunset and real-space conditions change everything.
• Real-life experiences, even in her own condo, taught Hilary that personal intuition isn’t foolproof and user-friendliness is vital.

5. Lessons from Hospitality: Touchscreens, Presets, & Staff Needs (17:25, 21:05)

• In hospitality (hotels, restaurants, ballrooms), user interfaces often must account for turnover and the need for failsafe, easy presets.
• Decision-making considers both what’s needed functionally (“Do we need five presets in the bathroom?”) and what will actually get used (“Does anyone actually need to touch controls in there?”).
• Adjacent space illumination: Don't let an occupancy sensor in a bathroom blast guests with harsh light if the pre-function space has subdued lighting.
  • “It’s very easy if you’re doing code minimum to just... not think about transition space... but what if it’s darker outside of the bathroom?” (18:21–18:58)

6. AV/Displays and Environmental Factors (23:01)

• Video walls/displays rarely get integrated properly into the lighting discussion, but their luminance can radically alter the feel of a space.
• Often, design calculations can’t legally rely on the presence of other systems—coordination is essential but can’t always be codified.

7. User Experience, Controls, and Education (25:29, 27:46, 29:50)

• The areas where F&B managers most care about controls are those that affect perceived ambience and revenue.
  • “The owners care about the lighting because if the lighting sucks, then they won’t sell food or people won’t come back.” (26:23)
• Staff turnover is high, so there’s always a balance between “set and forget” programmed scenes and giving staff flexible, easy-to-understand controls (often via touchscreens with tiered access).
• Educating clients about why certain hardware/layout choices (e.g., not having 12 wall-box dimmers) are necessary for both aesthetics and function.

8. Control is an Ongoing Dialogue, Not a One-Off (38:06, 40:19)

• Design should be a dialogue, not a confrontation—"Our job is to educate them ... walk them through other options that still sort of maintain what they think their design intent is." (37:43)
• Too many believe “we’ll just put it on a dimmer and solve the problem”; in reality, dimming capability is not a panacea.
  • “Putting it on a dimmer is a good way to have flexibility... but it’s not the end-all-be-all.” (40:13)

9. Lighting Controls Require Presence & Artistry (44:45, 45:28)

• Programming levels remotely or too early means redoing work—being present is the only way to capture actual ambience.
• Controls design is as much art as it is system architecture; getting it wrong wrecks the original design intent.
  • “Controls design is just as much of an art in some ways as the lighting design... Because if the controls design doesn’t meet the lighting designer’s intent, then everyone’s unhappy.” (45:28)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Well, we as an industry seem to be liking to make things more complicated, not less complicated.” – Hilary Wehner (05:42)
• “You can’t just guess at lighting level.” – Hilary Wehner (15:07)
• “A lot of lighting designers... may do some sequence of operations work. But beyond that, they kind of leave the system design up...” – Hilary Wehner (08:58)
• “I try to talk them out of overcomplicating it... but I do try to talk them into complicating things when ... you need thoughtful transitions.” – Hilary Wehner (21:05)
• “Putting it on a dimmer is a good way to have flexibility... but it’s not the end all be all.” – Hilary Wehner (40:13)
• “Design should be a dialogue... I don’t think design should be confrontation. I think it’s a dialogue.” – Hilary Wehner (38:06)

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Important Timestamps

• [02:10] – Hilary’s journey: from talent show to lighting controls designer
• [05:42] – Discussion on architectural vs. theatrical controls and industry complexity
• [09:56] – Shepherding stakeholders and the owner’s journey
• [14:36] – "You can’t guess lighting levels" sidebar and field stories
• [18:21] – Adjacent space illumination and how code-minimum fails occupants
• [21:05] – Programming scenes vs. actual user needs and how to avoid over-complexity
• [23:01] – Integrating AV/displays into lighting calculations
• [26:23] – F&B spaces: Why lighting makes or breaks a restaurant or bar
• [29:50] – Limitations of wall-box dimmers and explaining system architecture to clients
• [37:43] – Design as dialogue and educating clients/architects on the realities of implementation
• [40:13] – Dimmer as panacea: myth-busting and real-world examples
• [44:45] – Importance of in-person programming; artistry of controls design
• [45:28] – Controls and lighting design: interdependent artistry

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Episode Takeaways

• You can’t effectively design or commission lighting levels (especially preset scenes) without being in the space and seeing it firsthand.
• The complexity of controls is growing; designers and engineers must proactively educate themselves—and their clients—on the "why" behind specific choices.
• User interface design (where controls are, how many presets, who can access them) in hospitality must balance flexibility, aesthetics, code, and staff churn.
• Ongoing dialogue and education—not confrontation—between all project players (architects, owners, engineers) is essential for successful, satisfying lighting and controls outcomes.
• “Just put it on a dimmer” is never enough; lighting control design, like lighting itself, is a living art that requires knowledge, presence, and humility.

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For more conversations like this, visit the Lighting Controls Podcast website.

Transcript

[Hilary Wehner]

I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. And together we have the podcast Office Ladies. Just because we finished rewatching the Office does not mean we're going anywhere. Every Wednesday we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the Office and our friendship with brand new guests. Plus, you can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. So follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ron]

The opinions expressed are those of the

[Podcast Host]

participants and do not necessarily reflect the

[Ron]

official positions of the sponsors, advertisers or presenters. Advertising does not imply endorsement by the sponsors and presenters.

[Podcast Host]

Hey guys, and welcome back to the Lighting Controls podcast. We have another fantastic guest for you today. But before we jump into the conversation, let me take a minute to remind everyone. Today's episode is presented by the LCA

[Ron]

Lighting Controls Academy and it's financially supported by the national association of Innovative lighting distributors, or Nailed. Check out our website, lightingcontrolspodcast.com Got all of our episodes and a whole lot more. But huge shout out to our sponsor for this episode. We cannot do this without your support. MWConnect and their award winning Bluetooth mesh solution highly recommend you check them out. MWConnect us. You may know them previously as Mikuang, but they've rebranded to MWConnect. But they still provide the same great support for their projects. I really can't recommend them enough because they really do care about their projects. If you want to have a successful lighting control system that really is going to meet the needs of your project design, they really do offer a lot of options available to support you in different ways, you know, ranging from self powered switches all the way to network hubs and dashboards. So check them out. MWConnect us. But let's get into the conversation. So today we have Hilary, Hillary, do you mind just giving us a quick breakdown on who you are and what you do?

[Hilary Wehner]

Sure. My name is Hilary Wehner and I'm the owner of an architectural lighting company called Luxe at Veritas Design. We've been in business for about 13 years. I would say we're known for hospitality, hotels, convention work, that would probably be what our specialty is. But I myself sort of have a controls. I'm kind of a controls nerd and have a little bit of a controls background. I started out being interested in lighting in eighth grade when they asked me to do the lighting for the talent show.

[Ron]

Nice.

[Hilary Wehner]

So that was kind of like my introduction to it. And then in high school, I'm actually from Wisconsin, which, as everybody probably knows that listens to this podcast is where ETC Is from. And my high school ordered an ETC Controls board and Fred Foster himself came and did a software upgrade on it. So at the time, I didn't know who Fred Foster was and didn't know what my future would be. But that was sort of in the infancy of etc. Becoming something really big. And my tech director asked me, unrelated to the 8th grade talent show, if I would learn how to run their new fancy lighting board. And so that thus became my interest in lighting and lighting controls. That's awesome. So just to continue that a little bit, fast forward. In college I got an internship at Walt Disney Imagineering, and I was out in California and they were building one of their new parks. And the director of R D from ETC came and met with all of my bosses. And at one point they said, oh, well, she's from Wisconsin. And he said, where are you from? And all of that good stuff. And I was going to the University of Wisconsin at the time. And he goes, well, here's my card. Look me up when you get back. Maybe you can do an internship. So I did that and I sent an email with my resume when I got back. And I never heard anything until like the last week of college when they called me up and offered me like a summer job, basically. And so I worked at etc. Just for a summer, and it extended a little bit. But so I have a. That sort of was my introduction to lighting controls was the theatrical side of things. But fast forward, without getting into all of my life story, I now run an architectural lighting design practice. And so I've sort of made the transition, if you will, between theatrical and architectural.

[Ron]

Well, awesome. Well, thanks for joining us on the show, Hilary. It's always fun to have people, you know, who have been through the theatrical world and integrated into the architectural world, primarily because Ron and I also came from that world ourselves. But you know, from your perspective, having gone through that journey, you know, what do you think is sort of where we're at with architectural lighting controls? You know, is obviously there's always ways we can improve upon how we're doing things, regardless of where we are in the industry. But like, from your perspective, is there something that we could be doing better?

[Hilary Wehner]

Well, we as an industry seem to be liking to make things more complicated, not less complicated.

[Ron]

Very true.

[Hilary Wehner]

And you know, if we're talking about dimming in general in theater, it's almost easier because you're going to use DMX rdm, there's no question about it. That's it. Once you switch over to architectural, you can use phase dimming, which in and of itself, you've got forward phase, reverse phase, 0 to 10 volt Dali, and then within the 0 to 10 volt, you have various intricacies. And so you have to be really careful about dimming protocols, for one. So that's always sort of been around, even through the transition between, well, incandescent fluorescent to led. So that was already complicated enough, but now I feel like we've gone from centralized dimming to decentralized dimming. And I understand that. I think it's largely due to cost, but you end up with all of these peripherals and more stuff, smaller, more stuff that you got to find a place to put coordinates. Then there's, you know, wireless devices and all this other stuff. So it's become a lot more complicated than it ever used to be.

[Ron]

Absolutely.

[Hilary Wehner]

And I feel like there's a lot of designers and engineers that have kind of thrown their hands up and have gone, all right, I'm just going to delegate that design.

[Ron]

Right.

[Hilary Wehner]

And I sort of have the stuff that I do that with and the stuff that I don't. And a lot of the stuff that I don't do that with, I delegate to, like, the electrical contractor to find places to put these devices that we don't want to see in front of house spaces and just make sure that they. They submit a sketch that shows where they're going to put them to make sure that they're not visible or that they're too far away or whatever that is. And I try to focus primarily on the stuff that you do see and on the functionality of the stuff system.

[Ron]

Right. No. And. Well, and so I guess from your perspective, I mean, because of there's this intricacy and the fact that we've increased complexity with our lighting control systems, does that make it harder for you, from this, the vantage point of trying to just have functionality and identify how the system's supposed to work, is it more challenging for you to do that job?

[Hilary Wehner]

For a lot of the stuff that I focus on, not necessarily, but because the engineers have just thrown their hands up and they just wire a bunch of stuff to a panel and it feeds through to the dimming, and then they. They don't know how the dimming works. It makes it so I end up having to shepherd more, and not just because they're unwilling to do it, but because they don't understand it.

[Ron]

Sure.

[Hilary Wehner]

And I think there's a lot of people that don't understand lighting controls. And the fact that I have like a background in lighting controls, an interest in lighting controls, I take the time to learn it, but I'm not even sure a lot of lighting designers do that. You know, I think a lot of lighting designers, they'll do control intent and they may do some sequence of operations work, but beyond that, they kind of leave the system design up to between the engineer and the rep or the manufacturer.

[Podcast Host]

And so how does that work for you as far as, you know, sort of shepherding that process. Right. Because not everyone has the same background you have. So how does that work for you and your company? And what challenges does that either provide to the project or what benefits does it have by having you be able to sort of shepherd them and assist with this?

[Hilary Wehner]

I do think that it actually, if you go through a project with me, it sort of gives us a competitive advantage because I've had a lot of projects even in the last two years where I'll sit down with the stakeholder, the owner, the operator, whoever it is, to go over our proposed sequence of operations. And I don't just go, okay, what do you want to do? Because there's so much that they get overwhelmed. What can I do? So I sit down and I come up with a plan that I've mapped out given, based on my experience, and we'll walk through the different spaces and a lot of the times they're like, oh, wow, this is really complicated. I had no idea that you could do these things. I had no idea that you know, and this, this is a good thing. And I talk about astronomical time clocks, sweeps, conditional logic. And for anyone who might not know, conditional logic is just example. Say you have a two button station. If I walk into this room between the hours of 9 and 5, this button does one thing. And if I walk into this room between the hours of 5 and 8:59am it does this other thing. So preset one versus preset two, for example.

[Ron]

No, thank you. You beat me to that. I usually ask our guests to define things. Well, so, I mean, from your perspective though, with that sort of ad service, do you see that your lighting controls design becomes more concrete and basically what you specify is actually what gets implemented because you have the owner already on board.

[Hilary Wehner]

Well, I guess I need to back up a little bit before we talk about sequence of operations. As I mentioned, I do hotels and frequently you're not going to have any of those people on board until like a month. The people that care, the F and B manager, the general manager, the people that are me living and breathing it, they're not on board. They don't know when the restaurant's open, they don't know whether the fitness is open 247 or only open between certain hours, etc. So I will sit down with whoever, whether it's the developer, the owner's rep, the architect, the interior designer, whoever cares to listen to us and go over, okay, well we're thinking about having a five button preset in here or we're thinking about having a touchscreen here. And so we'll get buy off on that. Now what that touchscreen does, whether it has partitioning capability, whether it has zoning capability, whether it has multiple pins, all that other stuff, we can determine that later. You know, that capability is built in. So you really just need to decide how many presets you need and, or if you need a touchscreen or if you need dimming at all, if you just need occupancy sensors. So I do know that my clients walk away much happier because we don't just hand them this big complicated building that also has other systems that need to be commissioned and go, good luck. And you know, you have this like five star hotel with, and your presets are 175, 50 or 25. Right. You know, that's fine for certain buildings, but not a lot of the level of the building that I do. And if you just leave it in their hands, one, they don't know what they don't know and two, they're so overwhelmed with other things that they might not have time to get it the way they want it. And so us having sort of curated that for them and not just sort of phoning it in to check a box because you have to put the sequence of operations in your drawings I think is really appreciated.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I'd love to pick your brain for a second because we spend so much time talking to people about like offices. Right. Which are. And then people complain about their button stations or their user interface. And you mentioned like you spend a lot of time focusing on the stuff that you see. But in hospitality there's often a lot of thought that goes into the stuff that you don't see too. Right. You don't want stations in certain areas. So I'd love to understand how you sort of work through that process, through your, your lighting design and through the various areas to create these presets and these moods that work, you know, and I understand look, every lighting design is a living, breathing entity. But how you sort of work to get there, knowing that you're not going to get owner buy in until right before they walk in the door and how you work through that process.

[Hilary Wehner]

Okay, let me sidebar for just a second. My favorite is when talking about, like, the design is a moving, breathing thing, is when they go, okay, we need you to send us your preset levels so that we can program them before the. Before you get. We get to the site and we'll be done. And I'm like, no, You can't just guess at lighting level.

[Podcast Host]

You can't. It's so true.

[Hilary Wehner]

And I've been doing this an awfully long time. And no matter how long I've been doing this, you cannot guess at lighting levels. The minute that sun goes down, you go, oh, right.

[Podcast Host]

Yep.

[Hilary Wehner]

I guess to answer your original question, though, from my sidebar, I think a lot of now the way that I look at design is from, like I said, experience. Having done a zillion ballrooms, having done a zillion guest rooms, and also having done. I learned the most from doing my own. It was a condo at one point, and I put in Lutron Radio Raw in it. And I did it in quotes, right? And I realized that even me as a lighting designer, that I over. I had over complicated it for two reasons. One, nobody else could work my lighting controls. I'd have to be like. I did have, like one of those little remote controls where you could hand somebody and go all on, all off. And that's what I would do because they would walk into rooms and like, press and hold things so the lights would turn off. And so I think a lot of it is from, like, learning from experience or learning from mistakes, if you will. And then also, I keep going back to hotels, but I don't just do it for hotels, but knowing the different options to give and knowing that some of the stuff is flexible. So let's take a ballroom, for example. I would always recommend a touchscreen in a ballroom. Now, does it need to live inside the ballroom? No. Some people want. Some people want the controls from a house, which you can either lock out or password protect if you're worried about, like, guests touching them or. And some absolutely don't want them back of house. They want them in a locked closet where nobody can get to them when they need them. And my job is not to tell them, you should have this in the front of house, or you should have this in the vestibule, or you should have it in the locked closet. My job is to tell them the pros and cons of having it one way or another.

[Ron]

Mm.

[Hilary Wehner]

Now, as far as like talking about the presets themselves, it's really a matter of, you know, how much flexibility they need and also if there's any daylight involved. So for example, in a bathroom, let's just say it's a super high end hotel, has maybe some F and B really high end weddings where you're going to like be renting your ballroom out for $75,000 a night. Having dimming in your bathroom is probably worth it. But do we need five presets? Does anybody really need to touch the controls in there? No, you probably need like a day and an evening. So it's just not so jarring when you walk in when all the, you know, the pre function lights or wherever you're coming from is at a nice low ambient level. And then you walk on and the occupancy sensor goes, hello. And it's super full bright.

[Ron]

Well, I think that that's a really good point though, that we don't talk a lot about which is adjacent space illumination. It's very easy for if you're doing code minimum to just be like, okay, everything's just going to switch to the occupancy sensor and we're not even going to think about time of day or whether there's like transition space that needs to be dealt with. But you know, you just mentioned like, okay, what if it's darker outside of the bathroom? You don't want the bathroom to click on to full output. So, you know, what does that conversation look like with your clients? Do you even bring that up?

[Hilary Wehner]

I actually talk about bathrooms quite a bit because it's the first place you can be if you're gonna, if you're gonna say, okay, my whole building is gonna have dimming, right? All right, I can't afford to dim or I need to take money out. That's one of the first places I say, okay, well we'd envision that you would be dimming here. And this is why. So let's talk, especially if it's like a big huge hotel where you've got maybe a conference area that's primarily going to be used during the day, then maybe, or even if it is used at night, it's sort of more utilitarian. We're talking, we're not necessarily talking about weddings or high end F and B events or whatever. And so maybe it's easy to just take the dimming out There. But then I say, okay, well if you have a, you know, a signature restaurant that's pulling down $200 a cover a night, maybe we leave it there, there's some value there. And especially if it's in a hotel where you might be able to like pull in people from the local community. Right? Repeat customers. So that's. And again, I kind of try to like weigh the pros and cons. I will always give an opinion. If you say, what do you think I should do? I'll be like, I put this here and I put it here for these reasons and I'm recommending this for these reasons. And then if they say something that I don't necessarily agree with, I'll be like, well, we could do that. But and one of the things that like here's another example. So let's transition to restaurants. Sometimes they're like, well, we need a breakfast, a lunch early evening, a dinner, a post out. You know, like they want like eight presets. And I'm like, okay, that makes sense because you're talking about like how you turn the space for F and B. I'm like, but let's think about it in the terms of how the space is going to sort of feel. Does it really need to feel different between breakfast and lunch?

[Ron]

Right.

[Hilary Wehner]

Let's just say breakfast being daytime, it's full daylight already. Most of the time the answer is no. So I kind of try to talk them out of like over complicating it. Or I'm like, okay, well what is the difference? What, what do we need? Because your ambient levels, well, how much ever daylight that's coming in is still going to be in here. So what are your needs? Like do you have a buffet where you not going to be using it anymore? So we need to turn those lights off. But I try to talk them out of overcomplicating things. But I do try to talk them into complicating things. When for example, you have a lobby and they're like, well, we just need a day and a night. I'm like, well you have this big huge wall of glass here, so why don't we put a transition in that's a sunset and a sunrise or whatever, depending on the hours of operation. And then I talk about time clock settings in the sense that, okay, and we'll put it on this sort of 2 minute transition or 5 minute transition however you want, so people don't really notice it, but that the people standing at the desk are not like, oh gosh, it's so bright in here. And then all of a sudden, boom, night scene.

[Podcast Host]

That's exactly what happens in like all the small restaurants, right, that we all go to. It's like all of a sudden you're just like, oh, what just happened? Like, right. And it's so obvious and it's so dramatic. So how much do you factor in as more and more like, especially in like, you know, hospitality where hotels and ballrooms. There's so many large displays going in now, right? Video displays. How much do you factor the ambient light from that display into your design? And then do you bring that up to your client to say, hey, look, if we're going to be in this space in the evening, we really need to consult with AV and talk about maybe knocking down the intensity of this video wall because you're gonna blind everybody at nine at night.

[Hilary Wehner]

That doesn't come up very often. It comes up outside often when they're talking about signage display. In fact, I got paid last year to do some studies to calculate how much light you were getting out of this video display at x hundred feet away due to some like ordinance. And so I had to speak with the designer because we don't design the video displays to figure out like a formula for how we could calculate that would translate into like an IES file so that we could actually try to calculate it. Because they speak a little bit different in video than we do in architectural lighting calculation. I definitely, a lot of the times, you know, people ask things whether it's video display, whether it's daylight, whether you're talking about like outside lighting that's adjacent to inside lighting. And they, people ask, well, did you take that into account or can you take that into account? And a lot of the times I can't for code and design purposes because one, I don't have control over that. Two, I don't know whether the lights are going to be on or off. I don't know if the video display is going to be on and off. But it's definitely come up both with video displays. That's more rare, but that's a very good point. But more so with these third party manufacturers that, that sell backlit things like backlit acrylic. We can provide the whole system.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Hilary Wehner]

And it comes up because one, typically we want to dim it so that we have some control over it. But two, sometimes we need to be able to take into account the lighting that comes out of it. And every single time, without exception, it's been, you have six times too much light, they don't need this much light. And you know, it's because you have materials. People selling lighting instead of lighting, people selling materials and they're just going to cover themselves. So. So that has come up, but unfortunately it needs to be a consideration. But you can't always, like, take it into account as far as, like the base design. Does that make sense?

[Ron]

Yep. Yeah. And so, I mean, you mentioned that bathrooms are a very common topic of discussion. What other topics come up pretty frequently with your clients?

[Hilary Wehner]

Oh, well, I said bathrooms just because they're everywhere.

[Ron]

Sure.

[Hilary Wehner]

I don't spend my time talking about bathrooms.

[Ron]

No, but it's routine enough. I mean, I would say that the vast majority of lighting controls designers do not include bathrooms in their conversations. They're just like, oh, it's going to be a wall box sensor and we're going to move on with our lives.

[Hilary Wehner]

True. I'd say where the most opinions are about controls are going to be in the FMV spaces.

[Ron]

And just for people who aren't familiar with fmv, do you mind just.

[Hilary Wehner]

Oh, sorry. Food and beverage. So your bars, your restaurants. So the owners care about the lighting because if the lighting sucks, then they won't sell food or people won't come back. So they have a vested interest in the lighting. Feeling good because it translates directly to their, their bottom line. And then there's the other conversation, which is the operational side. Where is, how complicated do we make it? Because there's a lot of staff turnover, typically in restaurants, so there's a constant conversation about can the staff access the controls at all? Or it's usually like one or the other. I want you to come and set the settings. We. And we will set them with the F and B manager or whatever, get them to their liking, approve, set on a time clock and be done. And they, they want it to be set and forget nobody can touch it except for the general manager. And then you've got the flip side where they're like, can't we just put on a bunch of sliders and then we'll mark lunch and dinner and then our staff is going to be the one that does that, the lighting controls. So there's a. There's definitely like a very widespread opinion on what lighting control should be in restaurants.

[Ron]

And so with the slider question, though, that, that tends to be less and less common. Common primarily because of energy code requirements.

[Hilary Wehner]

That's right, yeah.

[Ron]

What is that? What does that conversation evolve into?

[Hilary Wehner]

Depends on whether it's an existing building or new build. But let's go with new build, sure. I typically say something along the lines of, well, that is definitely requires less training, but we can't do it for code reasons. And so I kind of try to talk them off the ledge because you can, there's certain things that you can do if you have wireless controls to have these digital wall box dimmers in. But I really also don't feel like it's the right thing to do a lot. So I try to talk them into either, I try to talk them into putting it on autopilot because a lot of the times it's, I mean you have to take into account hours of operation. Right. If they don't, if they're not open for lunch, you're not going to turn, you know, you don't need a dawn setting, nobody's there. Right. But you do have to talk about. All right, when does the kitchen staff come in? Do you want the dining room lights turned on when the kitchen staff comes in or they come in the back of house? Same thing with when they leave. But I will typically try to talk them into at least just having like a five button station or how many ever buttons they need. Right. So that if they want their staff to be the ones controlling it and they want it super simple that you just have this buttons with engraving or labels or whatever they want. Also because of some of the things that we were talking about earlier, if you try to do like wall box dimmers with these power packs or whatever, you're going to end up with like 12 wall box dimmers. Because remember we haven't talked about this, that as controls have gotten more complicated, you can't just wire everything together on a dimmer and control it.

[Ron]

Yeah, right.

[Hilary Wehner]

So that's another thing that you kind of have to educate on. Okay. No, we can't. You don't want to control all your chandeliers together, even if it's the same dimming protocol, because the chances are of them dimming at the same rate with these. A lot of the times the retrofit bulbs is pretty much zero and you're gonna have something that's either way too bright or way too dim. So we, we spend a lot of time saying it's just you have to control one, you, you have to control like control protocols on, on different, you know, you can't control, dislike control protocols on the same dimmer. So you end up with more, more zones anyway than when it was just incandescent lighting or halogen lighting. So again, a lot of back to the wall box dimmer is so that you don't end up with this like endless wall of stuff. And then you've got like some remote power pack someplace up in a ceiling that you also have to coordinate where they're gonna hide. So at the end of the day it's a lot simpler. I usually like to talk them into. I usually like to do touchscreen in a restaurant and then just put it on different pin, like pin protected, different axis. It kind of depends on the manufacturer. Some you can do more than one level. Because the other thing about restaurants, and I was talking about staff turnover is let's say we set everything up on day one, everybody's super happy. Well, on day 90 they change the schedule so our time clocks don't work anymore. Or they're not. They need to change them. Or say they fire the F and B manager and a new guy comes in and he likes everything super bright. So they then have the flexibility to reprogram the stuff or have access to the stuff, even if it's just to override stuff on their own. And if they want to make it so idiot proof, it's like the day I leave, you're stuck. And the only way that you can reprogram that is to call somebody from the lighting controls manufacturer to come back out and do it. So Yep, it's kind of a double edged sword because obviously when you give them that level of control, they can totally screw things up.

[Podcast Host]

Yep.

[Hilary Wehner]

But you always hope that with like the double pins, you know, you enter one pin and you can change the presets. Presets. And you enter another pin and you have access to changing the controls. And then you have the third super, super, super secret pin where you can save things.

[Podcast Host]

Yep, I'm right there with you. That's how I usually try to, you know, I usually try to push touch screens in those certain areas too. I do the exact same thing. We have a very basic. Anyone can log in and get to the very basic day to day needs that they need. And then it's all password protected from there. It's like you said though, you, you can it. The idea of having 12 dimmers on a wall anymore is just. Or 12 switches or whatever it is. Right. It's just, it's crazy to even think about stuff like that and that and that unfortunately, no matter how clean the electrician can possibly make it, it's ugly, it's messy and there's no way to, especially for a high end restaurant of any flavor or any place really to then set the lights at the same Time. Right. They can't create that preset. You don't have 12 hands.

[Hilary Wehner]

Right.

[Podcast Host]

Like, it's not.

[Hilary Wehner]

That's right. Everybody. Everybody it now. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Right. At least with the touchscreen, you can just press the button if you need to get in. You need. You want to raise this chandelier up or lower it down because the guest at that specific table want something. Like, you can. Great. You can. Then the manager can come over and do that. And like you said, if. If in 90 days they need to change the light levels because they've changed something, they have that power. For better or worse, they have that power. Right. And oftentimes it works out, you know, and hopefully it's a system that if they do screw it up, you can remote either remote into it or, you know, send them the file back and say, here, reload this file, and all is right with the world, and I don't have to come out and see you. But when you get a lot of pushback for that, and people are like, no, absolutely not. I don't want a touchscreen. Obviously, the client wants what they want, but how do you still try to. To push them? And do you. Do you have examples that you then show them or try to take them someplace to kind of let them get a better understanding of what they're missing?

[Hilary Wehner]

Well, there is sort of the interim version now where you can just have. I don't get a ton of blowback on the. No, I want 12 wall box dimmers. One, because they don't want 12 wall box dimmers. They were thinking, you know, three or four. Number one. Number two, we do have the code thing. In most. In most instances, you can't do it anymore.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Hilary Wehner]

But to talk them into preset station versus touchscreen, now there's a fallback where most of the manufacturers have an app for that. Yep. So depending on some of them, the app just mimics what's on a touchscreen. Yep. But some of them, you can. You can program stuff, and then they can access an app if they eventually want that. You can add that functionality in, and then on day one, they can have just their very basic preset station. But I also sort of walk them through the things that we were talking about. Okay. You say you want it really simple. Okay. So I might talk them into doing the touchscreen, but having it in the manager's office, and then what their staff can touch is just this very simple button station. And if I can't talk them into a touchscreen, then again, nowadays, a lot of the times you have the app as a fallback that they can add in later. But, you know, at the end of the day, just like anything within sales, you. You ask three times in different ways. And if they say no, as long as they're not doing something that's dangerous or against code, then you let them have what they want. So that's no.

[Ron]

But I think that that's a really good way of approaching it, though, because a lot of lighting designers will just go, oh, that's what you want? Okay, great. We're gonna, you know, walk away. Not even test that thought, like you said.

[Hilary Wehner]

Yeah, I have that with some of the younger designers. They'll come into my office and be like, okay, well, I'm doing this. I'm like, why are we doing this? Whether it's controls or something else. And then he'll be like, that's what the architect wants. And I'm like, no, that's not what the architect wants. That's what the architect told you they wanted. A good example of that was they showed us a rendering where they had these. I know this is control, so I'll make it quick. They had these linear fixtures that were like 2 inch wide. Linear fixtures. And they were like a foot on center and staggered all over this canopy outside. And. And I said, they're like, well, look, that's what's in the rendering. I'm like, yes. And it's going to be like 400 foot candles. And then they're like, well, you know, I guess we could put out a dimmer. I'm like, well, yeah, so what is 1% of 400? I'm like, it's still going to be too bright. I was like. I said, so our job is to educate them. Not to say you can't have what you don't want, but to say, and this is exactly what I did. And this individual kind of threw up their hands. They're like, well, then you call them. And I'm like, okay, I will. So I called and I said, I see that. You know, I know you have this conversation about this, and I see the design intent, and it's not that you can't have the design intent, but do you think we could thin this out? Maybe use less? Maybe use something, you know, like, walk them through other options that still sort of maintain what they think their design intent is without having these horrific lighting levels? And he was like, yeah, no, no, no. That was just like, to kind of show design intent. And I'm like, yup, show a design intent. But it's I think it takes a lot of experience. And then some people don't like confrontation. And to me, I don't think design should be confrontation. I think it's a dialogue, just like we're having now about control.

[Podcast Host]

Yes.

[Hilary Wehner]

And I think it takes a lot of experience to get maybe comfortable with that, especially if you're a younger designer and your architect is a senior designer, to be able to say those things or even just to be able to think in that way.

[Ron]

Yeah. Well, I really enjoy that story because of the mentality of we'll just throw it on a dimmer because that doesn't solve the problem. And in a lot of cases, you know, it doesn't solve the problem that you're trying to address. It's like if you just throw it on a dimmer, like what is the expectation here? And so it does kind of feel like this mysterious black hole that you can throw problems into without worrying that it's not going to fix the problem. But I mean, from that mentality, I mean, how often do you hear that come up where somebody's like, oh, we'll make it dimmable and we're good.

[Hilary Wehner]

I mean that comes up quite a bit. So to talk about one of my least favorite topics when it comes to hotel design, guest room corridors. You know, we start out the project, everybody wants everything dimmable. Well, reality is that it's just not typically gonna happen because of cost. Right. And so they're usually like, well, we'll talk about stuff. And I'm like, well, I think that's going to be too bright. Well, we'll just put it on dimmer. I'm like, well, we could do that. But understanding that I've designed, you know, whatever hundreds of hotels, you know, I would say maybe 10 of them have dimming in the guest room corridors. So yeah, and that's over, you know, 20 plus years. So I have to kind of have those conversations. And then other times I'm like, sure, let's just put it on a dimmer. But I mean, I'm not going to let it be so over designed that. But I mean putting it on a dimmer is a good way to have flexibility or to suggest flexibility.

[Ron]

Sure.

[Hilary Wehner]

But it's not the end all be all of your controls questions or we're

[Ron]

almost out of time here. And I want to summarize like what we've talked about here because I think this is really important, the sort of core message that's here because you know, what you do is you engage with your clients in conversation about expectations for the lighting control system, which is pretty uncommon with a lot of lighting designers, because having these conversations, first of all, can be really challenging, figuring out who it is you're going to be having that conversation. But then second of all, you know, actually being able to sit down and go space by space, how do you envision this space being controlled? Requires a certain level of knowledge and expertise with how controls work and knowing, you know, you can't just slap a dimmer on it and be done. You have to think through holistically about how that system is integrating not just in that one space, but also with adjacent spaces and how time of day, time of year, etc. Etc. Is going to impact it. But then furthermore, you know, with the type of projects that you work on, there is a huge amount of consideration when it comes to employee and staff retention and turnover and where that knowledge is going to be held and whether or not that knowledge is going to evaporate as soon as there's a huge turnover of staff. So there's a lot of thought and consideration. Even though you don't necessarily tap into what the engineer's responsibility is with making sure that the system is complete and designed and functional for the code requirements and everything like that, you still need to know all of these things. You still need to be able to guide these conversations and say, that's not code compliant, we can't do that. Or yeah, we could do that, but this is a better option from my experience. So having these conversations really helps facilitate a stronger design at the end of the day, not just from a control standpoint, but from a lighting standpoint as well. And so, you know, the ideal here is as a lighting designer, you can have these conversations without necessarily drawing a one line diagram or doing a complete device layout. You can still engage people in conversation about lighting controls and what the goal is for the project and, and what the expectations are for these spaces so that you could really guide the end result and, and increase the satisfaction of the clients that you're working with. And while there's certainly a lot that we could do to perfect the industry and, and improve upon it, you know, I would make the argument that these conversations are really the thing that we drop the ball on the most because, you know, for any number of reasons, but these are really the core dynamic that is required to make sure that lighting controls design is done correctly. I mean, there's a huge amount of energy right now to try to motivate all people who are touching lighting to create a control Intent, narrative, at minimum, sequence of operations. Additionally to that, because of the fact that it really does state what the expectations are. And going even further, you know, there is this sort of laziness with scene schedules where it's like, okay, yeah, 20, 50, 75, done. And I agree with you that you cannot predict what that space is going to look like under the percentages until you're in it. It's very similar to theatrical lighting design. You know, a lot of groups would say, oh, well, we'll do a paper tech and we'll pre program all the cues and we'll be good. And it's like, I don't know what it looks like with the actors on stage. I mean, I can kind of guess, but it's like we're. We're doubling the amount of time programming this by not actually having it run in its entirety and so adding in that parameter. You know, if you give them a scene schedule that's. That is kind of cookie cutter, you know, Is that what they're going to lean on and say, okay, we're done, and they're not even going to call you in? Because then that's a whole other issue where you've already planned the design but you haven't finalized it. You haven't given it that nice hard edge to everything. So being able to push back and say, no, I'm not going to give you a scene schedule because I don't ultimately know what it looks like is perfectly reasonable. Because you really do need to be in the space when you program that.

[Hilary Wehner]

Yeah, I mean, you're gonna end up doing it twice. So. And a lot of the times, because you have to program during the time of day. I know we're running out of time, but I try to, you know, we run, we're done, and then we have, you know, four hours until sunset. So I'll be like, okay, let's just try to do the dusk scene and the night scene. And I mean, it helps a little bit that you're not starting from scratch, but at the same time, again, it just amazes me that even after all this time, that. And with all this experience that you really. You have to be there to see what everything else looks like and to see what it looks like without the contribution from daylight and other things. So.

[Podcast Host]

Well, it's, it's, you know, it's. Controls design is just as much of an art in some ways as the lighting design. It's just as it's. It can almost be. It's as important. I don't want to say it's more important. It's as important as the lighting design. Because without, if the controls design doesn't meet the lighting designer's intent, then everyone's unhappy, right? So because you're now not meeting the owner's intent because the controls design can't meet that intent. And then you had mentioned, you know, oh, just put a dimmer on it and same thing. I know we're running out, but just quick, right? It doesn't work that way anymore. People neglect digital dimming. People just instantly go, incandescent light bulb. I dim it down and I don't care how the brightest light bulb in it and when I get it down to 1%, it's less than 1%. It doesn't work with digital. Right. When you get to 1%, it is truly 1%. And there are a lot of times where that is too bright in many cases depending on the fixture selection like you mentioned. And that's such an important detail that people, I think, neglect and don't think about because they, their brains are just so stuck in sort of that incandescent thought or they don't, they don't think about how much light they're actually putting into that space like in that specific scenario. And it just, it oftentimes can just unwillingly go unnoticed. Right. And it's, it's so important to have sort of a thoughtful eye for that kind of stuff too. And that's where I do think it's so important for the lighting designer to have some say, regardless of whether you're doing the controls design or not, to have some say in the controls design to make sure that it's going to achieve your needs. And that does in a lot of cases, I think, go above and beyond control, intent, narrative and scope and sequence of operations. Because if you, if you're not sort of in grained in, what are we doing? What this is really what I wanted, not this. And here's the reasons why. You know, it's depending on the control system, you may not get the results that you and the owner are expecting. So it is so important. So thank you so much for such a thoughtful conversation and I hope everyone got a lot out of it. I really enjoyed it. We don't talk a lot about hospitality. It's. We tend to so much about offices and all the boring stuff. So it was so great to talk about this and how much of whole

[Hilary Wehner]

other neat, whole other needs, daylight controls, all those wonderful things.

[Podcast Host]

Right. There's just, there's so much art that goes into these spaces. And so you really have to be so thoughtful and think through that and through your design. And it's so important. And I don't know that everyone necessarily catches that because there's a lot of restaurants and stuff where you go, huh. I don't think you thought about this at all.

[Hilary Wehner]

Or they changed the bulbs. Ruins everything.

[Podcast Host]

Yep, Exactly. Hilary, thank you so much for your time. Absolutely fantastic conversation. Really appreciate you coming on with us.

[Hilary Wehner]

Well, thank you for inviting me. I really enjoyed this too. It's nice to geek out every once in a while, like a control with somebody else. Thank you both.

[Podcast Host]

I love it. I will close this out and remind everyone. Today's episode is presented by the lca, the Lighting Controls Academy.

[Ron]

And it's financially supported by the national association of Innovative Lighting Distributors, or nailed. Check out our website, lightingcontrolspodcast.com got all of our episodes and a whole lot more, but also huge shout out to our sponsor for this episode. We cannot do this without your support. MWConnect and their award winning Bluetooth mesh solution really highly recommend you check them out. MWConnect us to see what they have available to you because they really do care about their projects. You know, it's not enough to just say, okay, well, it's another lighting control system. If you're unfamiliar with them, I really recommend you check them out because they really do want to make sure that their projects are successful. They have some excellent case studies and documentation on their website worth checking out. So go to mwconnect us. But thank you for joining us. And Hilary, thank you. This was an awesome conversation.