Cross reference
Acuity Controls nLight and nLight AIR
nLight is the networked lighting control system written into most South Florida commercial drawings by default. This page answers what follows: what would I offer instead? Four systems I represent, one I do not, and the questions a controls substitution has to survive that a fixture swap never faces.
- Wired CAT-5e and AIR wireless
- 128 devices per control zone
- 1,500 ft cable per zone
- 1,500 devices per nLight ECLYPSE
- nLight AIR at 900 MHz
- BTL listed BACnet B-BC
- SensorView and CLAIRITY+
The target
What nLight actually is, before you try to replace it
Acuity describes nLight as a flexible wired and wireless lighting controls platform that scales from room to campus on one system. That is two products sharing one name, and which one the drawings mean decides the substitution.
| nLight wired | nLight AIR | |
|---|---|---|
| How devices connect | CAT-5e terminated T568B carries data and low-voltage power on one cable; sensors, WallPods and power packs plug into RJ45 ports and self-configure | A 900 MHz radio. The rTLN outdoor node publishes +20 dBm and 1,000 ft clear line of sight, plus 2.4 GHz at +10.4 dBm and 100 ft |
| Published limits | 128 devices and 1,500 ft of cable per control zone, nBRG 8 bridge with eight zone ports, power packs supplying 30 to 40 mA per port against 3 to 4 mA per device | No more than 128 devices in a group, per Acuity's AIR operation and maintenance manual. No network-wide cap is published |
| Head end and software | nLight ECLYPSE (nECY): up to 1,500 devices and 128 channels network-wide, BTL listed as a BACnet Building Controller. SensorView is an IIS application on a host machine | The nLight AIR Adapter (nECYD) where groups must be networked; standalone groups run from CLAIRITY+ on a phone. BACnet is not addressed in the AIR manual |
| Typical devices | nCM sensors, nPODMA WallPods, nPP16 power packs | rCMS and rCMSB sensors, rPODB and rPODLA wall pods, rPP20 relay pack, rTLN node |
Every figure here is Acuity's own: the nLight pocket guide, the system backbone IT document, the ECLYPSE spec sheet, the AIR manual and the rTLN spec sheet. Acuity publishes no consolidated capacity table on the live nLight site.
The callout
What "nLight enabled" on a fixture schedule commits you to
Acuity defines the phrase. The nIO family is described as low voltage control devices integrated within Acuity Brands LED luminaires, and Acuity writes that these devices result in luminaires being nLight-enabled, making them both addressable as well as capable of digitally communicating with other nLight controls such as occupancy sensors, photocells and WallPods.
So an nLight enabled luminaire is not a fixture with a 0-10V driver that somebody will wire to a control later. It is a fixture ordered with a factory-installed module inside it and a place in a commissioning database: the fixture order, the CAT-5e topology and a start-up visit, all in one line. If the alternate puts the sensing back in the ceiling, the fixture price falls and the cable rises. Price both.
The equivalents
What I would offer against an nLight or nLight AIR specification
Four are lines I represent for SESCO in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe. The fifth is not, and leaving it out would make the page less useful. Every figure is the manufacturer's own.
| Line | Family | Why it lands in the same place | What to check before you swap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wattstopper | Digital Lighting Management, wired and wireless | The structural twin: a room controller with the relays and 0-10V outputs, sensors and switches on Cat 5e carrying data and power and self-configuring on power-up, with native BACnet MS/TP at the bridge and the panels. | Capacity per local network is 64 load addresses and 48 devices, from a document dated 11/16, against 128 per nLight zone, and the LMSM segment manager shows discontinued in favour of NB-ROUTERs for 300 rooms. No radio range or devices per bridge is published for wireless DLM, and room devices are indoor only. Legrand sells the start-up as an orderable service. |
| Dynalite | Signify Dynalite | The wired answer when the luminaires are DALI rather than 0-10V. DDBC320-DALI carries three DALI-2 lines at 64 drivers each, 192 per device; DDC116-UL is a plenum-rated box controller with a 20 A relay and a channel selectable 0-10V or DALI broadcast to 40 drivers. | DyNet is RS-485, a bus, not a CAT-5 star, so the riser is redrawn. BACnet at the PDDEG-S is certified to ISO 16484-6 but licensed by point count, a line item nLight does not have. Sensors are IP20, nothing above IP54, and commissioning is System Builder, a specialist visit. |
| Interact | Interact Pro | The direct answer to nLight AIR. Commissioned over Bluetooth from a phone, then run on a Zigbee mesh, with switches and sensors on Zigbee Green Power harvesting their own energy: no wire, no battery. | The caps set the architecture: 200 light points per gateway, 200 devices per network, 150 luminaires with integrated sensors, 30 Green Power sensors, 50 switches. BACnet only at the LCN1850/05 Gateway Pro tier, no published subscription terms, and Interact hardware is not named in the Signify indoor controls warranty. |
| ETC | Paradigm, Echo and Echoflex | For a space people perform in rather than work in. The Paradigm Architectural Control Processor Mk2 publishes 2,048 channels over DMX and sACN, up to 128 stations, and NTP synchronisation supporting real and astronomical events. ETC states all its architectural controls include occupancy sensors and daylight response. | Read what ETC does not publish. The family pages name DMX and DALI; 0-10V, sACN and BACnet detail sits on product documents and I found no BTL listing statement. The energy-code material does not address exterior control, and no radio range or device count is published for Echoflex. Paradigm's 128 stations are stations, not loads. |
| Lutron (not on my line card) | Athena, with Vive for retrofits | What an nLight specification most often loses to, and Lutron publishes more capacity than anyone here: 300 areas per system, 100 zones per area, 99 switchlegs per zone, a QS Link to 2,000 ft, Clear Connect Type X at 2.4 GHz within 75 ft of the processor. | I cannot quote it, so it comes through another channel with its own lead time and submittal support. Load types published are 0-10V, forward and reverse phase, EcoSystem, DALI-2 Type 6 and Type 8 Tc, DMX and switched, so check the driver. Deployment is Connected, Server or Networked: ask which the owner accepts. |
Nine times in ten the first thing I quote against nLight is Wattstopper DLM, because the room architecture matches and the BACnet path is native. There is a full Wattstopper DLM guide specification here.
The question behind the swap
Code package, or building system
Settle what the control intent on the schedule is, because these are not the same conversation. A code-compliance package clears plan review: sensors, daylight response, a time switch, nothing the owner will ever open. An owner-facing building system is used in year three: scenes, a dashboard, BACnet points, energy reporting, a login somebody holds.
Swapping one code package for another is a device count and a price. Swapping a building system changes who owns the software, who commissions it, what the BMS sees and what the facilities team was trained on, and that belongs in front of the owner rather than in a substitution request. Topology decides the rest: wired nLight is a CAT-5e star and DLM the same idea, Dynalite an RS-485 bus, Interact Pro and nLight AIR radios. Turning a star into a bus, or wire into radio, redraws the low-voltage sheets and moves cost between the contractor and the start-up, so it reaches the estimator before the alternate is priced. Check the driver too, which the dimmer compatibility checker covers.
Florida
Which of these satisfies each requirement, from published material
The FBC Energy Conservation, 8th Edition (2023) is why most of these systems are on the drawings. Interior, at C405.2: occupancy sensors, time switches, and daylight-responsive control wherever the daylight zone carries more than 150 watts. Exterior: off automatically in daylight, everything other than facade and landscape reduced at least 50 percent from midnight to 6 a.m. or on a schedule, and parking-lot luminaires over 78 watts at 24 feet or less reduced by half after 15 minutes of vacancy in zones of no more than 1,500 watts. Full text on my Florida energy code lighting page. Not published means I looked and the manufacturer does not say.
| Requirement | nLight | Wattstopper DLM | Dynalite | Interact Pro | ETC | Lutron |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Occupancy and vacancy sensing | Yes, nCM and rCMS | Yes, LMDC, LMPC, LMPX, 600 series | Yes, DUS360CR, 5 m range | Yes, and in Interact Ready fixtures | Yes, on all architectural controls | Yes |
| Daylight-responsive control | Yes, photocell in the rCMS | Yes, LMLS-400, LMLS-500, LMDL-600 | Yes, cell reads 5 to 5,000 lux | Yes, in the luminaire sensor | Yes, for all systems | Yes |
| Time switch and schedule | Yes, at the nECY | Yes, LMCP relay panels | Yes, PDTS and PDEG astro clock | Yes, at the LCN1840/05 gateway | Yes, Paradigm NTP and EchoTouch | Yes |
| BACnet to the building system | Yes, BTL listed B-BC | Yes, native MS/TP, LMBC-300, LMCP | Yes, ISO 16484-6, per point | Only at the Gateway Pro tier | Not published on family pages | Yes, BACnet/IP to a processor |
| Exterior: daylight off, 50 percent reduction | Yes, rTLN, 1.5 fc on, 2.25 fc off | Yes, LMPO-200 with an LMCP schedule | Not published, nothing above IP54 | Yes, per the outdoor bulletin | Not published | Not verified |
| Parking lot: 50 percent after 15 minutes | Yes, rTLN with motion | Yes, FSP-211, FSP-311, FSP-611 | Not published | Yes, LCN4120 and LCN4150 | Not published | Not verified |
HVHZ product approval attaches to the pole and its attachments rather than to a control device, except that an exterior node adds to the assembly EPA and weight. And none of these five publishes a salt-spray rating for a control device, so on an oceanfront parcel the hardware stays in conditioned space.
How to read this
What this page is, and what it is not
This is a professional recommendation from a manufacturer's representative, not a factory cross reference. No manufacturer here publishes an equivalence between these systems, and nothing here is approved, equal in a contractual sense, or guaranteed to clear a submittal. Two systems can satisfy the same code section and still produce a different sequence of operations, commissioning scope and BACnet object list. The engineer of record decides.
What I do to support a substitution request: write the sequence of operations for the alternate against the drawn one, map every space to its C405.2 requirement and the part that satisfies it, give the device count by room type so the cabling can be re-estimated, name who commissions it, and say where a manufacturer publishes nothing.
Judgment
Where I would swap it, and where I would not
Easy swaps. An open office, a school, a medical suite or a multifamily corridor package where the schedule wants occupancy sensing, daylight response and a time switch and nothing more: Wattstopper DLM does that with less software and a native BACnet path. A fit-out in a finished ceiling: Interact Pro or wireless DLM, because the cost of that job is the cable you do not pull. A DALI or tunable-white job: Dynalite. A theatre, house of worship or color-change lobby: ETC, the better system there.
Where I hold the spec. If the schedule already says nLight enabled on hundreds of luminaires and the submittal is out, the alternate is priced with the fixtures rather than against them, and by then it is rarely worth it. If the mechanical drawings put the lighting on a BACnet trunk with a point list, changing systems changes the point list. If the owner already runs nLight elsewhere and wants one dashboard, a second platform to save a few dollars a room is a bad trade. On an exterior package I will not offer Dynalite or ETC.
Documents
Where every number on this page comes from
Wattstopper material is hosted here because it is a line I represent; the rest links to the manufacturer, where a competitor specification belongs.
Questions
What contractors and engineers ask me
The schedule says nLight enabled. What am I committing to?
A luminaire ordered with a factory-installed nLight module inside it. Acuity's wording is that these devices make the luminaire addressable and able to communicate digitally with other nLight controls: a fixture order, a cabling topology and a commissioning database in one line. An alternate that puts the sensing back in the ceiling is a different price and device count.
Can Wattstopper DLM do everything nLight does?
For a room, yes: the same distributed architecture on Cat 5e and native BACnet MS/TP. Above the room the numbers differ. Legrand publishes 64 load addresses and 48 devices per local network against Acuity's 128 per zone. On a large building that is a re-architecture, and I would rather draw it than assume it.
Will the alternate satisfy the parking-lot rule?
Wattstopper and Interact publish an answer: FSP fixture-mount sensors on one side, the Interact outdoor bulletin on the other. Dynalite and ETC publish no exterior control story, so I would not offer either there. The code asks for at least 50 percent reduction after 15 minutes of vacancy on luminaires over 78 watts at 24 feet or less.
Who commissions the alternate, and is it in the price?
Name the party in the substitution request or it gets argued about at rough-in. Legrand sells start-up and commissioning as orderable services, Dynalite goes through System Builder, Interact Pro through the app. Florida requires the controls tested, calibrated and programmed before final inspection, and owner documentation within 90 days of occupancy.
Why is Lutron on a page written by a rep who cannot sell it?
Because a cross reference that only lists what I carry is a sales sheet. Athena is what an nLight specification most often loses to. I would still rather quote a line I represent, because that is where I help in year two.
Next step
Send me the project
The lighting plan with the room names, the fixture schedule with the driver types and any nLight enabled callouts, and whether the mechanical drawings expect the lighting on a BACnet trunk. Back comes the equivalent by room type, the device count, the C405.2 map, the commissioning scope named, and a price.
Send me the project Call 786-395-1222 See the whole line card