Philips Lightolier + Brilliance 2 panel - Use Leviton RS232 to interface?

The previous owner in my home used the Philips Lightolier system with a Brilliance 2 panel. Doesn’t seem very energy efficient but works pretty well. It would save me alot of money if I could interface with the Brilliance 2 panel and send ASCII commands to it through its RS232 interface. Documentation on this system is sparse on the internets so I have not been able to find much information. I guess the system was not very popular.

I researched and found a ZWAVE RS232 device from Levinton. No idea exactly what the purpose of this device is for. In my imagination, I would plug this in, attach the RS232 cable to the port on the Brilliance 2 panel and somehow in my Vera Lite write some LUP code to send RS232 codes to turn on and off lights through out the house.

The alternative option is to replace the switches with ZWAVE switches. As this is a rather large home it would cost quite a bit. Cost aside though, it seems like none of the switches are “perfect” especially for LED lights. I want to switch my flood lights to LED lights but have seen so many problems with dimming them. Currently, when my lights turn on or off, they slowly brighten or fade to darkness. Pretty cool and elegant. Seems impossible with any dimmers on the market now (I could be wrong).

So, because of this, I am hoping to simply interface with my existing solution until the market has better LED lighting solution. Anyone have any experience with either products? Any in depth manuals of either would be great!

The Leviton VRC0P provides a command line through RS232 to control Z-Wave devices; i.e. it acts as a controller. Sounds like you are looking to do the reverse?

I’m happy with the dimming (including fade-out effect, and to some extent fade-in) of our LEDs; they are on VRE06, VRM10 or plug-in modules.

Thanks for the info.

The switch you recommended looks nice but way out of budget. I probably need about 20 of these and that adds up rather quickly.

Yeah, not cheap at all. That was just an example. Folks have been reporting combinations they are happy with. From memory, I believe people are happy with the Evolve gear for example.

Old thread, but documentation is pretty easy to find on this system, here’s the protocols: http://kb.homeauto.com/redirfile.asp?id=59&SID=

search for Lightolier Brillance rs232 and you’ll find it as one of the top hits.

I’m also interested in getting this working.