Property CareHome › The quiet smart home
The best technology is the kind you never notice.
Most smart homes announce themselves: a wall of glowing plastic, four apps to open a curtain, a speaker listening in the corner. We build the opposite. Cables you cannot see, wifi that simply works in every room, and light that arrives at the right brightness for the hour without anyone reaching for a switch. The house feels better, and nobody can quite say why.
Foundations first, cleverness afterwards
Ethernet, entirely hidden
Cable is still the only connection that never argues. We run it where nobody will ever see it: through loft and floor voids, behind skirting, up the backs of cupboards, into neat outlets beside the desk, the television and the study. The best time to do this is while a room is already open for other work, which is why it pairs so naturally with a Room Refresh.
Wifi that flows through the house
Not one heroic router shouting through three walls, but discreet access points wired back to the cable, handing your phone quietly from room to room as you walk. No dead corner in the back bedroom, no dropped call on the stairs, and nothing visible beyond a small white disc on a ceiling you will stop noticing within a week.
Light that knows the hour
Bright and clean when you come downstairs on a winter morning. Warm and low as the evening settles. And at two in the morning, a gentle glow at ankle height that lights the landing for a child or a guest without waking anybody or blinding them. Lighting is where automation earns its keep first, because everyone feels it immediately.
The quiet housekeeping
Heating that follows the household rather than a timer set in 2019. A door that tells you it was left open. The immersion, the garage, the greenhouse frost alarm. Small, unglamorous automations that remove daily friction, which is the same thing we do with hinges and doors, only in software.
Home Assistant, running in your house
Everything is built on Home Assistant: free, open-source software that runs on a small computer in your own home rather than in somebody else's cloud. It is the most capable platform of its kind, and it happens to suit this brand exactly.
It keeps working
Your broadband drops and the lights still come on, because the brain is upstairs in a cupboard, not in a data centre. Nothing stops working because a company changed its mind or closed a service.
It stays private
Local by default. Your movements, habits and cameras stay in your house unless you specifically choose otherwise. We will always tell you plainly what leaves the building and what does not.
It is yours
No subscription for the system, no lock-in to one manufacturer's ecosystem, and no dependence on us. Everything is documented and handed over, because a home you cannot manage without us is not a home we have improved.
Honest about the wiring, as always
Data cabling, mounting, joinery, making good and the automation itself are all ours. New mains circuits, consumer unit work and anything else notifiable under Part P belong with a registered electrician, and we bring one in from our trusted network to do that part and certify it. You still have one conversation to manage; the right registered hands still touch the right parts of the job.
We are also honest about what not to automate. Some things are better as a switch. If a proposal is clever but would irritate you every day, we will say so before we build it, which is the same instinct that leads us to say leave it for now about a repair.
Smart Home Care
A smart home is not a purchase; it is a household that keeps changing. New things arrive, habits shift, software moves on. Left alone for two years, the cleverest setup slowly becomes the thing everybody works around.
So we look after it the same way we look after gutters and hinges. Smart Home Care is a rolling monthly arrangement, thirty days' notice, no minimum term.
The greatest compliment is not admiration for the system. It is forgetting there is one.
Looked after, month by month
- New automations as you think of them, built and tested properly
- New purchases integrated: robot vacuum, doorbell, blind motors, heating controls, sensors
- Software kept current, with updates applied carefully rather than automatically
- Backups taken and checked, so a failed memory card is an inconvenience rather than a catastrophe
- Seasonal review: lighting retuned as the daylight shifts through the year
- A patient answer when something behaves oddly, without a ticketing system
- Batteries in sensors changed before they die, during a home care visit if you have one
- Honest advice on what is worth buying, and what is landfill with an app
If you already have a home care plan, this sits alongside it and the visits are combined, because two conversations is one too many.
Asked and answered, honestly
What happens if the internet goes down?
Almost nothing. Your automations run on a small computer in your own home rather than in somebody else's cloud, so lights, sensors and schedules carry on working. Only the parts that genuinely need the internet, such as remote access from your phone while you are out, pause until the line returns.
Is there a monthly subscription?
Not for the system itself. Home Assistant is free, open-source software, and what we install belongs to you outright. Our optional support plan is a separate choice, and you can stop it whenever you like with thirty days' notice.
Does this mean my house is listening to me?
No. We build local-first, which means your data stays in your house by default rather than being sent away to be processed. Voice assistants and cloud services are added only if you actually want them, and we will always tell you plainly what leaves your home and what does not.
Do I need to rewire the house?
Rarely. Most of what we do uses existing routes, loft and floor voids, and the moments when walls are already open during other work. Where new mains circuits or consumer unit work are needed, a NICEIC or NAPIT registered electrician from our trusted network does that part and certifies it.
What if I buy something new later?
That is exactly what the support plan is for. A new robot vacuum, doorbell, blind motor or heating control gets integrated into the setup you already have, so it joins the household rather than adding a fourteenth app to your phone.
What if we sell the house?
It stays, and it is documented plainly enough for the next owner to live with. A well-considered system is a selling point; an undocumented one is a liability, and we would rather leave the former behind us.
A survey and design visit is £195. Concealed ethernet outlets are around £230 each, wifi access points about £295 fitted, and a Home Assistant server built, configured and handed over is roughly £585. Individual automations are around £95, and integrating a new device into an existing setup about £65.
The services on this site are starting points rather than a menu. They can be combined, taken apart, or reduced to the single job you actually want doing. If all you need is a curtain pole hung, a patch of damaged wall made good or a sticking door eased, ring and ask for exactly that.
Start with the dead spot and the dark landing
Most projects begin with one irritation. Tell us yours and we will tell you honestly what it would take to fix it properly, and what else is worth doing while the floor is up.