Dimming means reducing the current supplied to the fixture. This reduces the lumen output and decreases the light intensity. When you step dim the fixture, you are dropping the light level from 100% to 50%. This is a great way to get energy savings when 100% light level is not needed.

After a long period of testing, 0-10 V dimming has been adapted to be a reliable LED dimming control protocol. It is one of the earliest and simplest electronic lighting control signaling systems. Simply put, the control signal is a DC voltage that varies between zero and ten volts. When the 0-10 V dimmer is turned up to a maximum of 10 V, the output current will also reach 100% of the power supply output, and the brightness will be 100%. When the 0-10 V dimmer is modulated to 0, the current is the smallest, and the light is completely off. But if it does not jump to 0 V, it will not be completely extinguished, there will be power consumption.

The principle of DC 1-10 V dimming is also a simple method describing output of driver is fully on. 100% is the maximum of driver and 10% is the minimum level. when the 1-10 V dimming is adjusted to 1 V, the light is the weakest, and it’s off when 0-1 V.

So the difference between 0-10 V and 1-10 V dimming: different lighting and turn-off voltage. 0-10 V turns on at 0.3 V; 1-10 V turns on at 0.7-0.8 V, and the lamp will not be turned off completely. Most bluetooth controls for energy efficient retrofit projects will need the zero off driver, which is 0-10 V dimming. Such as some place of Canada just have 347 V there controls available but do not have a relay for it, so they need the driver to have a “dim to off ”feature.