Outdoor lighting control

I would ideally like the lights to switch on in the evening by a timer but only to 50% brightness, and then gradually increase to 100% when motion is detected for a couple of minutes before dimming back to half brightness.

I'm sure I've seen self-contained lights + PIR that do that sort of thing (perhaps not the gradual dim, but certainly 'dim standby' as it were). It's a lot trickier these days to find something that'll dim existing lights though - just because there are so many different dimming systems out there (leading edge, trailing edge, with umpteen variants of each). Some downlighters (esp. some LEDs) simply aren't dimmable at all (any attempts either just don't work or just cause them to flicker annoyingly). There are dimming PIRs out there, but the ones I've come across seem to side-step the how-to-dim problem by just producing a 0-10V or DALI signal and then you'd need a compatible dimming ballast or control to actually dim the light.

So a lot depends on the lights you already have and how much you want to pay. On the far end you could go for a programmable lighting control system that changes 'scenes' according to various triggers (e.g. PIR). On the other end of the scale, re-wire so that alternate lights are on continuously after dark and the other half are just switched by the PIR.

   - Andy.

I would ideally like the lights to switch on in the evening by a timer but only to 50% brightness, and then gradually increase to 100% when motion is detected for a couple of minutes before dimming back to half brightness.

I'm sure I've seen self-contained lights + PIR that do that sort of thing (perhaps not the gradual dim, but certainly 'dim standby' as it were). It's a lot trickier these days to find something that'll dim existing lights though - just because there are so many different dimming systems out there (leading edge, trailing edge, with umpteen variants of each). Some downlighters (esp. some LEDs) simply aren't dimmable at all (any attempts either just don't work or just cause them to flicker annoyingly). There are dimming PIRs out there, but the ones I've come across seem to side-step the how-to-dim problem by just producing a 0-10V or DALI signal and then you'd need a compatible dimming ballast or control to actually dim the light.

So a lot depends on the lights you already have and how much you want to pay. On the far end you could go for a programmable lighting control system that changes 'scenes' according to various triggers (e.g. PIR). On the other end of the scale, re-wire so that alternate lights are on continuously after dark and the other half are just switched by the PIR.

   - Andy.