A wireless lighting control system by Lutron allows the homeowner to illuminate their home from the driveway with one touch of a remote control on the car visor.

But how about driving home in the dark and with one touch of a remote control on your car visor, your dark house is illuminated with lights that line the sidewalk, lights on the front porch and several interior lights.

Or how about leaving on vacation and while you are gone your house uses memory to re-create your movements around the home to make it appear as though someone is home.

SYSTEMS TAKE HOLD These are just a few of the possibilities available with automated lighting control systems -- a feature that is beginning to take hold in the residential market, bringing convenience, simplicity, ambience, safety and energy savings to home electrical systems.

"For comfort we have thermostats that you can change to make it colder or hotter. For sound we have music systems that can change how and where you hear it. But sight is kind of the most neglected. Lighting it is an on-or-off sort of thing," said David Aderhold, the local representative for On-Q, a company that sells whole-house structured wiring systems for lighting, communications, entertainment, security and computer networking.

The On-Q system works out of a centralized component box that is usually installed next to the breaker box where cable, DSL, electrical and Inter-net connections come into the house.

CUSTOMIZED TO HOME All On-Q lighting control systems are custom-created for each individual home. The company's basic system starts around $1,000 for a 2,000- to 2,500-square-foot house. It includes a centralized lighting control sys-tem with dimmers, a keypad at the entrance door, a switch by the bed-side to turn off all the lights in the house and the ability to interface with your security system.

AT YOUR FINGERTIPS This Lutron lighting control panel offers a variety of pre-set "scene" options.

The top of the line On-Q lighting system can go to about $4,000 for a 4,000- to 5,000-square-foot home. Along with features from the basic package, it has more sophisticated lighting scenes in each room, timed lighting controls, re and safety alarm interfaces, and increased lighting throughout the house.

Lighting control systems actually simplify your life, says Jamie Stott, senior sales/application engineer for Lutron Electronics Co. Inc. The sys-tem reduces the time you spend each evening going around the house turning off lights, to one click of a button at your bedside. And with the Lutron wireless system, fumbling to get into a dark house is replaced with one click of a button from your car remote that illuminates the whole house.

Lutron's basic system, called AuroRa's Safe Entry Lighting system, starts around $700 and includes one wireless remote controller, five wall dimmers and one master control box. The system can be upgraded to as much as 4,000 when you add multiple automated lighting scenes with multiple dimmers, security interfaces and timed lighting controls.

SETTING A MOOD While simplicity and convenience are the basics of these systems, ambience and setting a mood in a room through lighting are bonuses. "All fabrics, all art, all furniture and all people look better under a controlled lighting environment," said Larry French of L. W. French Inc. , which represents both Lutron and On-Q in the Richmond area.

Take a kitchen, for example, where you might have pendant lighting over the island, under-counter lighting and recessed lights in the ceiling.

"You can have one look for cooking or cleaning where everything is relatively bright. Another look is for when guests come over and the recessed lights get dimmed down a little bit and the pendants get dimmed a little bit but you retain a higher level on the under-counter lights to give the corners of the rooms different glows," said Stott.

An automated lighting control system allows owners to create various moods or "scenes" with lights. In this Goochland home, for instance, when the room is set to the Entertain scene, the lights are dimmed for a smooth ambience. A press of the Relax scene button brightens the room's lighting.

'GOODNIGHT' BUTTON System installers work with homeowners to create diffierent "scenes" for many occasions. Then you simply press a button on the keypad that corresponds with the scene you want. Stott says on the keypad, Lutron uses such names as warm welcome, entertain, relax, pathway, cooking and good night.

"You may have daily use scenes, a breakfast scene, a dinner scene or a television scene," said Aderhold. "If you have small children you may have a night scene with lights in their bedroom on at a low level so they are comfortable, and there is a pathway that is slightly illuminated so that you can go check on them."

ADDS SECURITY FACTOR Safety and security are another part of automated lighting controls.

"On the safety and security side it is never entering a dark home again. Or if you hear a strange noise in the middle of the night you can press a controller by your bedside and turn on all the lights in your house before you go investigating the sound," said Stott.

Lighting can also be interfaced with security systems to make outside floodlights . ash or to turn on full exterior and interior lights. If the fire alarm goes off, the bedroom lights could go on as well as path-way lights in the halls to illuminate a safe passage out. Exterior lights can also . ash to help emergency crews find the house quickly.

DIMMING SAVES ENERGY Did you know that dimming your lights not only saves you energy but also the life of the bulb? Because dimmer switches and different light levels are an integral part of these systems, this is an added bonus.

"Any time you dim a light it is a linear relationship. So if you dim a light 50 percent you save 50 percent [of the energy used]. If you dim it 75 percent you save 75 percent," said Aderhold.

"Then the more you dim your lights the longer the lamps last. If you dim your lamps as little as 10 percent you double your lamp life. And it is exponential. If you dim it 20 percent it will last four times longer," he said.

Stott adds that not only do you increase the bulb's life, but also if you dim a light to 90 percent of its maximum, the average human eye can't really tell the difference. And dimmers work with all standard incandescent bulbs.

WORK WITH BUILDER If you think an automated lighting control system is something you want in your new home, be sure to tell your builder from the start. System installers can work easily with electricians to incorporate the system. And because the system works off the same technology as the regular dimmer switches in most homes, it is easy to install.

And once the system is installed, you can still control your lights on an individual basis when and where you want it, said French.

"Most people's version of control is either on or off," said French. "Our version of control is what is between on and off. But once you have it, the idea of going out and turning off each light individually seems crazy."

"People are starting to understand that there are products that make life easier when it comes to lighting. With the convenience, it is really starting to make people think of lighting control as a necessary piece of the home," said Aderhold. "It makes life easier, it is not difficult to install and it is not prohibitive from a cost perspective. It is a mere matter of telling your builder you want it."