W Group’s New WAC HOME System Is Consumer-Friendly for Showrooms

For WAC, 2025 kicked off with the debut of a new corporate entity – W Group – which encompasses the brands WAC Lighting, Schonbek, and Modern Forms. Lightovation also marked the introduction of WAC HOME, a line of smart home products designed to make it simpler for showrooms to demonstrate the benefits of smart and circadian-friendly lighting by positioning the concepts as a smart home system.

WAC HOME was unveiled at Lightovation within W Group’s dramatic renovation of the WAC and Modern Forms showrooms in the Dallas Market Center, now connected on two floors via an internal staircase.

Aubrey Bertin, executive director of sales and business development, conducted demonstrations within a newly constructed and branded room-size vignette to walk buyers through the system in an approachable, consumer-friendly way that they could emulate at their own showrooms. 

There are three components to WAC HOME: Recessed downlights in two-inch and four-inch FQ tunable white (1800-4000K) with a choice of round, square, trim or trimless versions as well as  different finish options and beam spreads;  INVISILED DUET (1800-4000K) two-wire, COB-style tape in 100, 200, 300, and 400 lumen packages; and PIXELS DUET sheets of LED (1800-4000K) in a tunable white spectrum.

The controls come preset for ease of use, so no further commissioning is needed by the end-user. Preset 1 is the Welcome setting in 3000K at 75% brightness (which can be dialed up or down to dim or brighten the space to the end-user’s liking).

Preset 2 is the Focus mode, which is set at 4000K at 100% brightness. “This is great for cleaning or studying, where you want to put more focus or attention on a task or activity,” Bertin explained.

Preset 3 is the Entertain setting, which is 2700K at 35% brightness. “This is great if you have a dinner party or guests over and you want to create a little ambiance, but still be able to see people’s expressions,” he said. And Preset 4 is Relax mode, which is set at 1800K at 5% brightness.

In the WAC HOME vignette, Bertin showed that all of the elements in the kitchen scene – from the overhead recessed lights to the stone countertop lit from within by LED sheets to the tape light illuminating the interior of cabinets and along the toe kicks – are synced by the presets. If users prefer to have specific lights operating independently from one another, this can easily be achieved. In addition, the factory-set scenes can be personalized by overriding the presets using the WAC HOME app to reprogram the preset buttons to create custom scenes such as “movie mode,” “gallery mode” for highlighting artwork, or another application. The color temperature of each fixture can also be changed to further personalize the lighting for the user. 

It was the “natural lighting scene” that particularly interested showroom buyers at Lightovation.

Bertin explained that by entering your zip code into the WAC HOME app, it will follow the sun for your area and change with the time of year.  For example, the lights will come on at sunrise at 1800K and continue to rise. “Then about noon or 1pm, it will be at 4000K at 100% brightness, and it will descend down through the afternoon into the evening,” Bertin said.

He noted that for spaces that have a lot of natural light (i.e. floor to ceiling windows), this application is perfect for matching the interior lighting with the natural light outdoors. Likewise, for windowless rooms, the natural lighting scene can simulate the natural environment.

Control of the WAC HOME system comes from the WAC-Mesh network and MyWAC app. The 120-volt wall station conveniently controls the smart lighting system from a designated location. The necessary WAC-Mesh Portable Gateway is a wireless device that enables fast and seamless control powered by WAC-Mesh technology. One gateway can handle up to 60 devices. If more than 60 fixtures need to be controlled, an additional gateway is needed.

Lighting showrooms will be happy to hear that the WAC HOME line is only available through brick-and-mortar retailers and is not available online through etailers.  

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