DALI Definitely the Buzz

Walking the floor at this year's Lightfair, one couldn't help but see some kind of placard promoting the fact that a product was DALI-compatible—that's to say it works with the digital addressable lighting interface protocol, which was broken down by Rick Miller in April's issue. Miller, who presented the subject in educational sessions this year and last year, noted in his '02 presentation that he saw quite a lot of product that was compatible. The difference this year was that vendors were marketing it. "We see DALI as the future," said Stuart Berjansky, a product manager for Rosemont, Ill.-based Advance Transformer. "It really is an enabler of other building systems, and we're looking to be the innovator."

The company unveiled its "ROVR" intelligent DALI fluorescent ballast line, which Berjansky said can carry two-way communication to fixtures equipped with such ballasts.

Shawn Good, P.E., a lighting designer for Brinjac Engineering, Harrisburg, Pa., was impressed with the amount of DALI product he saw on the floor, but before he jumps on the bandwagon there's some questions that need to be answered—notably, when it will really hit and exactly what products are out there.

"But there's a lot to be said for the simplicity of the scheme, especially in an office setting, where if you change your layout you don't have to pull out lamps and ballasts, you just reprogram them," said Good.

"It's still very much at the educational stage," concurred Sameer Sodhi, a product marketing manager for Danvers, Mass.-based Sylvania, who exhibited its Quicktronic DALI ballast (pictured above).

But, Sodhi pointed out, there are engineers interested in DALI right now. "Especially for special or custom projects," he said.