LiteTouch Wireless Antenna Positioned As Upgrade for Existing Customers

A new remote base antenna from LiteTouch enables the company’s existing wired lighting control system to be managed wirelessly, part of an effort to cull sales from its existing customer base amid the falloff in new home construction, the company said. To get dealers on board, the company is sending out project names and equipment lists in a starter package for an upgrade sell, making LiteTouch the latest custom electronics company that’s trying to train dealers how to mine for business in the existing-home market, it said.

"One could argue that dealers should already have done that,” said Angie Larson, vice president of sales and marketing, “but that’s not something they're used to thinking about.” The emphasis on upgrades “marks a shift in strategy,” Larson said. “We're providing dealers with an opportunity to get business from the upgrade market when new construction business is down. We're giving them a list of all jobs in their territories along with marketing materials so they can go back to consumers and talk to them about upgrading, which they may not have considered."

The marketing push also lets LiteTouch keep a line to its end-user customers, which have become a primary sales target now that new-home customers have dwindled. In some cases, existing customers don’t have their original tie to the company, as numerous installation companies in the industry have folded since the economy soured. Larson declined to estimate the number of LiteTouch dealers that have shuttered operations, but she said maintaining relationships with existing consumers, “is a big concern.” The company is also running consumer campaigns on the benefits of upgrading lighting systems on its website, including how energy savings could fit into an upgrade pitch.

Energy savings are providing one of the new business opportunities, along with programming updates and the accommodation of new light sources in a home. “Ten to 15 years ago lighting control systems weren’t optimized for energy savings,” Larson said. “It wasn’t part of how homeowners wanted to operate their lighting.” To take advantages of current energy awareness, the company is encouraging dealers to offer green features including timer control that restricts hours of operation and dimmed scene settings that reduce the lighting load, she said.

Several wireless lighting control systems have hit the market over the past few years. Larson said LiteTouch is differentiating on transmission speed. “Our goal to make our wireless systems as powerful as our wired systems,” she said. The base antenna, which itself wires back to the central control unit, is remotely located and communicates directly to the central control unit via Cat 5 cable. “The connection between the antenna and the CCU is instantaneous,” she said, contrasting the LiteTouch system to other systems that rely on repeaters that might require the signal to take “several hops” before the signal is received. “If you press a button in a dark house and it takes a second or two for the light to go on, that’s a long time,” she said. “If nothing happens right away you might press the button again and put the system into an unknown state.” The new base antenna adds wireless control to wired LiteTouch systems dating back 12 years. Systems older than that would require a CCU replacement, Larson said, offering an additional upgrade opportunity. Customers of those systems could keep their keypads and load modules, she said. “It’s cheaper than having to buy a new system."

The new antenna package also expands the capacity of the company’s existing wireless lighting control system. Introduced last year, the system was limited to one antenna and a dimmer. The new remote base antenna expands that reach to 256 wall-box dimmers.