For years, DALI (Digital Addressable Lighting Interface) has been the standard choice for professional lighting control in offices, hotels, hospitals and commercial buildings. It gives each fixture its own address, so lights can be dimmed, grouped, scheduled and monitored individually.
The catch has always been the wiring: DALI needs a dedicated control cable. That is changing.
What’s new from the DALI Alliance
The DALI Alliance, the global industry body behind the standard, introduced two developments ahead of Light + Building 2026:
- Certified wireless-to-DALI gateways: new testing and certification for gateways that connect DALI systems to Bluetooth NLC and Zigbee wireless networks.
- DALI+ over Thread: DALI+ takes the DALI language onto wireless and IP-based networks, working alongside the existing DALI-2 standard.
The Alliance has also announced DALI 27, its first global summit and expo, a sign of how quickly connected lighting control is growing.
Why this matters
Until now, project owners had to choose between wired DALI for reliability and standardization, and wireless systems for flexibility and easy installation. Certified gateways and DALI+ mean both can work in the same building:
- Wired DALI in new construction, where control cabling is planned from the start.
- Wireless control in retrofits, fit-outs and areas where new cables are hard or disruptive to install.
- One control strategy across the whole site, instead of separate systems that can’t talk to each other.
Where wireless lighting control fits in Saudi projects
- Hotels: room and corridor scenes without opening finished ceilings and walls.
- Offices: switching and dimming that follow partition and layout changes.
- Retail and supermarkets: zone control across aisles and display areas.
- Hospitals and clinics: retrofits with minimal disruption to operations.
- Villas and residential compounds: adding smart control to existing homes.
- Heritage and fit-out projects: areas where surfaces can’t be chased for cables.
What to check before choosing a system
- Standard and certification: for DALI projects, ask for DALI-2 certified drivers and certified gateways.
- Wired, wireless or hybrid: match the approach to each zone, not one rule for the whole building.
- Integration: confirm how lighting control connects to the building management system (BMS).
- Future upgrades: choose drivers and fixtures that won’t block adding sensors or monitoring later.
- Local support: commissioning, programming and after-sales service in the Kingdom matter as much as the hardware.
Alrouf smart lighting control
Alrouf Lighting offers smart lighting control solutions for homes, hotels, offices and supermarkets in Saudi Arabia, including:
- RF Series: a wireless lighting control system that links switches and panels to lighting circuits without new control cabling, well suited to retrofits and fit-outs.
- Wireless Kinetic Switch: a battery-free switch powered by the press itself, which can be mounted on glass, gypsum or stone, or moved when layouts change.
Alrouf supplies these controls together with its own commercial LED lighting, with site survey, design and installation from its branches across the Kingdom. Download the Smart Lighting Control catalog to explore the range.
Planning a smart lighting project? Talk to our team about the right wired, wireless or hybrid approach. Request a quote or email sales@alroufled.com
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