Charter Controls are the UK Agents for the Hugo Muller and GIC Ranges of both Mechanical Time Switches and Digital Time Switches.

Mechanical Time Switches are tappet controlled and can be switch on or off by pushing or pulling little tappets. This type of Time Switch is limited to only 24hr or 7 day.

Digital Time Switches are programmable and can be either 24hr, 7day or even yearly programmable by specific time and date. They also have daylight savings time (DST) option and are multilingual. Some Digital Time Switches have an Astro function which means that once its longitude and latitude or nearest local city have been set (time switch dependant), then the time switch knows sunrise and sunset times. The switching times can then be based on sunrise and sunset with an offset if required.

A typical installation for an Astro Time Switch would be car park or bus shelter lighting. The lights could be switched on half hour before sunset and then off again after store closing or the busses have stopped running. They could then be switch on at 5am for example and then off at sunrise. This means you do not have the lights on when the sun is still up thus saving energy and bulb life.