The Transformation

Part of that transformation included refurbishing the stately crystal chandeliers in the lobby to be use flexible LED strips instead of their old-fashioned incandescent original light sources. The new RGB color mixing solution would illuminate the front lobby and accompanying bar in a way that lets the mood change over time very subtly or with great drama.

enter Barbizon

As Rob Yeager of Barbizon Capitol tells us: “In April of 2009, Barbizon was contacted by Kugler Ning Lighting Design to provide a DMX control solution for the W Hotel’s refurbished chandeliers. The completion of the W Hotel's high-end renovation included the capability to control timed color changes of the chandeliers’ new LED flexible strips while at the same time being able to recall specific colors for special events.”

“There was no one system that had both a strong scheduling engine and a user friendly interface that the hotel desk could easily navigate. All the different variations we explored were easy enough for us to operate as lighting professionals, but the concern was putting the proper interface in front of the client. The solution had to be one that gave the client flexibility to change the colors as needed, but also run events that were programmed to a time of day calendar.”

ENTTEC e-Streamer

“Our answer was the Enttec E-Streamer. The Enttec E-Streamer has a very powerful scheduling engine that is very intuitive to the average lighting programmer. So far the button interface on the front of the unit is user friendly enough for the end user. After receiving the unit and starting initial programming, we discovered that while the E-Streamer was able to handle the timed programs just fine, there was an issue with how the manually recalled events would affect the time of day sequencing. After a few discussions with Enttec searching for a solution, Enttec stepped up and rewrote the programming code to include a priority system for the different recorded events.”


This new feature was rolled out in beta form, in time for the W Hotel's installation, and we'll cover it in more detail next issue.



Photo Credits: Jeremy Kumin © 2009