Astronomical Clock

BeoLiving Intelligence can generate events relative to the time of sunrise or sunset.

When setting up a macro, create an event and choose System events, and for setting the time, select Relative to sunrise or Relative to sunset.

In each case, an integer value ranging from -720 to +720 minutes must be given (720 minutes corresponds to 12 hours).

For example, to turn on the front lights 30 minutes before sunset, select Relative to sunset, with value -30.

Note that usual values are no larger than a few tens of minutes relative to sunrise or sunset.

If using greater values, be careful not to cause event overlaps at certain times of year that could result in an undesired behaviour for the customer. For example, an event set for sunset plus 420 minutes in Denmark will occur after sunrise during the summer.

Setting up the astronomical clock

The astronomical clock needs to know your geographic location in order to calculate sunrise and sunset times.

This is configured in Settings / Date & Time / Astronomical Clock, where values for latitude an longitude must be provided.

These values must be entered as a number. Positive latitude indicates North, positive longitude indicates East. Similarly, negative values indicate South latitude or West longitude.

For example, the coordinates for New York City (40.6700° N, 73.9400° W) would be entered this way:

• Latitude: 40.67
• Longitude: -73.94

Precautions with high latitudes

Be aware that cities with latitudes at or beyond the polar circles will have several days per year without a proper sunrise or sunset event.

In this situation, be careful that these naturally missing events are taken into account when setting up the system.

For example, avoid things like leaving all lights on during weeks or months until the next sunrise occurs.