A controller for the fixtures you actually specified.
You picked the fixture for how it looks and how it dims. Then you found out what it wants to be driven by — a DALI bus, or a DMX source — and the options were a lighting console you do not want in a house, or a proprietary box that only speaks to one brand.
Ctrlable Pro drives both, from the same appliance, with the commissioning and patching done on screen instead of on paper.
If the fixture is on a DALI bus
DMF's Artafex line offers DALI modules — warm dim, tunable white and static colour temperatures — sold into the custom integration channel. Modular Lighting Instruments ship DALI variants across their architectural range. Plenty of European specification fixtures arrive DALI-only.
All of them need something to commission the bus, hand out short addresses, build the groups and drive DT8 colour. That is the whole job, and most DALI-to-MQTT bridges only expose lamps.
What the Ctrlable DALI gateway exposes
- Commissioning and short-address assignment, from the panel.
- The group matrix — all sixteen groups, edited as a grid rather than guessed at.
- In-fixture scenes, stored on the ballast where they belong, so a scene recalls in one command.
- DT8 colour, which is what tunable white actually is on a DALI bus.
- Queries and a raw frame console, for when you need to ask the bus something yourself.
- 64 addresses on one pair of wires, 254 level steps, two commands per ramp.
If the fixture wants DMX
DMF's PhaseX is the clearest current example. It is a tunable white system for the custom integration channel, and the PhaseX Gateway takes line voltage in and — in DMF's own words — pairs with any manufacturer's DMX system to control the fixtures.
That sentence is the opening. Any manufacturer's includes ours, and a DMX source is exactly what the Ctrlable Art-Net Gateway is.
What the Art-Net gateway gives you
- Two isolated DMX universes per gateway, PoE powered.
- 16-bit DMX output, so a slow fade across a tunable white pair does not step.
- Art-Net, sACN (E1.31) and KiNET in, configured in the UI rather than a config file.
- A visual patch — drag fixtures onto a 512-channel grid and watch overlaps flag live.
- A real entity for every fixture you patch, so the rest of the system can address it by name.
Why not the alternatives
A lighting console
Consoles are excellent at what they are for. A residence is not a show: nobody is going to keep a console alive for ten years so the kitchen can dim, and no homeowner is opening one to change a scene.
A single-brand gateway
Works beautifully until the second brand arrives on the same job — and on a real specification it always does. A protocol-level controller does not care whose fixture is on the other end.
Hand-written config
A patch that lives in a YAML file is a patch only one person can change. Ours is on screen, and the person who has to change it in two years can see it.
Before you specify it
What we will and will not claim
Ctrlable drives fixtures by protocol: if it is DALI-2 with DT8 colour, or takes DMX512, this controls it. We have not bench-tested every fixture named on this page, and we are not going to pretend otherwise — brands change drivers between revisions and a datasheet is not a test.
Tell us the fixture and the driver revision you are specifying and we will tell you plainly whether we have run it, or arrange to.
Questions
Can I drive DMF PhaseX from Ctrlable?
PhaseX is controlled from a DMX source through DMF's PhaseX Gateway, which DMF states pairs with any manufacturer's DMX system. The Ctrlable Art-Net Gateway is a DMX source with two isolated universes and 16-bit output. Send us the gateway revision you are specifying and we will confirm it against a real one.
Does it handle tunable white properly, or just level?
Both. On DALI that is DT8 colour; on DMX it is a channel pair driven at 16-bit so a slow fade does not visibly step.
Do I need a separate box for DALI and for DMX?
They are separate gateways — a DALI bus and a DMX universe are different wires — but both are driven from the same Ctrlable Pro appliance and appear in the same system.
Is this cloud dependent?
No. The appliance is self-hosted on the site's own network and licensed per appliance. Lighting does not stop working because an internet connection did.
What if the fixture is a brand you have never seen?
If it speaks DALI-2 or DMX512 it is very likely fine, because those are the things we implement. Ask us and we will give you a straight answer rather than a compatibility badge.
DMF, Artafex and PhaseX are trademarks of DMF Lighting. Modular Lighting Instruments is a trademark of its owner. DALI is a trademark of the Digital Illumination Interface Alliance. Ctrlable is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any of them. Product names are used only to describe interoperability.