Products
The kinds of devices that go into a home, what each one is for, and the thing to check before buying it.
Smart switches and dimmers
Fit behind your existing switch plate. The wall switch keeps working, which matters more than it sounds.
Smart bulbs and strips
Colour and warmth without touching the wiring. Best where the wall switch can stay on.
Door locks
Code, fingerprint, card or phone, with a physical key as a fallback.
Video doorbells
See and speak to whoever is at the door, from anywhere.
Cameras
Indoor and outdoor, with local or cloud recording.
Sensors
Motion, door, temperature, water leak, smoke and gas.
Curtain and blind motors
Track motors and roller tubes, wired or battery.
Climate control
IR bridges for ACs, and controllers for fans and thermostats.
Hubs and gateways
The box that ties a Zigbee or Z-Wave network together and keeps it working offline.
Smart plugs and sockets
Switch and measure a single appliance without any wiring work.
Why there is no brand list here. Which make goes into a home depends on what the wiring allows, whether the devices need to work offline, and what spares will still be available in three years. We pick per project and tell you exactly what is being quoted, with model numbers, in the written proposal. If you have already bought devices, bring them — we will tell you honestly whether they fit the plan.
Choosing between Wi-Fi, Zigbee and wired
This single choice decides how reliable the house feels, so it is worth two minutes.
| Wi-Fi | Zigbee / Z-Wave | Wired (bus) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Needs new cabling | No | No | Yes |
| Works with the internet down | Depends on the brand | Yes, via the hub | Yes |
| Load on your router | One client per device | None | None |
| Battery devices | Poor — months at best | Good — a year or two | Not applicable |
| Best for | A handful of devices | Most retrofits | New construction, large homes |
In an occupied flat, the answer is almost always Zigbee-class devices with a local hub, and Wi-Fi only for the few things that need bandwidth — cameras, speakers, the doorbell. Putting thirty devices on a home router is the most common way a smart home becomes an unreliable one.
Questions about equipment
For an occupied flat, Zigbee-class devices with a local hub, and Wi-Fi only for the things that need bandwidth: cameras, speakers, the doorbell. Battery devices last roughly a year or two on Zigbee and weeks to months on Wi-Fi, and thirty Wi-Fi clients on a home router is the most common cause of a smart home that feels unreliable.
Some are fine. The problems are consistency between units, firmware that is never updated, and a brand that may not exist in two years, which matters because the cloud service dies with it. If you are going to buy budget hardware, buy it for things that work locally and avoid it for locks and anything load-bearing.
A switch module or a sensor draws a fraction of a watt. Across a whole house that is a handful of units a month — less than it saves the first time the AC gets switched off automatically at 4am. Cameras recording continuously are the one category that actually uses noticeable power.