A zone is a user-defined logical grouping of lights that can all be controlled with a single command. Lights can belong to multiple zones, and you're free to create and group lights in zones in any way that you choose. There is one default, non-removable zone "All", which applies to every light in the system.

A zone is often named after the function of the grouping, such as "Emergency Lights", "Parking Lot", or "First Floor".

For example, imagine a lighting system within a theater. The overhead lights could all be grouped into one zone. Aisle lights could be another zone, and above door lights could be a third zone. Each of these groups of lights has a role, and that role can be defined through the use of Behaviors and then applied to each of the Zones.

NOTE: Switching the zone "All" to off will turn off every light, but will not set all zones to the off setting. This is by design, and is used when you want to switch off all lights, but also want to keep sensors active in case lighting is needed. To completely switch off lights and sensors, you'll need to switch off their corresponding zone.

When a Zone is activated, the Zone's associated Behavior is activated. A Behavior is an instruction for how the system reacts to a sensor event, or a combination of factors.

The power of a SimplySNAP lighting system is centered in automation. Rather than always having a user control lighting, you can use sensors to let your lighting system to respond changes within its environment. For example, you might use a motion sensor to control the lights in a seldom used warehouse. As someone opened the door, the sensor would notify the SimplySNAP lighting system of movement and the system would respond by invoking a behavior to turn the lights on. When the occupant leaves, the system could gradually dim the lights to off over a specified time to ensure that no one is left in the dark.

Likewise, a SimplySNAP lighting system can respond to a lack of movement. When the motion sensors within the warehouse have not sensed movement for a user defined amount of time, the system can change the light level to something lower.

Behaviors can be triggered by manual switches, motion detectors, and photocells. For more information on Behaviors, see Adding Sensors and Switches

A Scene is a grouping of Zones, with specified behaviors for each of those Zones. This allows you to issue commands to a number of lights where each light is at a different brightness or activation method. Depending on the needs of your installation, you might have a scene for a normal business day, an energy saver scene for evenings, or an emergency scene for disaster drills.

Within our theater example, it would have a number of Scenes available to create different atmospheres.Two Scenes within a theater might be "Pre-Movie," and "Movie."

The "Pre-Movie" scene might set the overhead lights zone to 60% brightness so patrons can find their seats, while the aisle lights and the above door lights zones are set to 80% brightness to provide extra definition. When the "Movie" scene is invoked, the overhead lights zone is reduced to off, while the aisle lights are dimmed to 10% brightness, and the above door lights are reduced to 20% brightness.