How to Design a Smart Home: An Expert Guide

There are an ever-increasing number of options now available to create a smart home, from Alexa-enabled devices to full-blown cinema rooms and whole-house lighting, heating and security solutions.

It’s easy to dismiss the idea of a smart home as a ‘fad’. However, consider how we now live in our homes – browsing the internet on our phones, remote working, and streaming the latest series on our TVs (activities which are often happening simultaneously in a family home) – and you realise how intrinsic technology has become.

Options for a smart home broadly include:

Audio, including multi-room audio (opens in new tab) which provides the option to play music across every ‘zone’/room or choose different music in different zones in the house

including multi-room audio which provides the option to play music across every ‘zone’/room or choose different music in different zones in the house Visual — from multi-room systems which allow you to stream box sets, sports etc, to different TVs throughout the home, to dedicated cinema and media rooms

— from multi-room systems which allow you to stream box sets, sports etc, to different TVs throughout the home, to dedicated cinema and media rooms Lighting : Options include remote control – allowing you to turn on/off and dim lighting in a room or throughout the house – and intelligent lighting which mimics your daily use whilst you’re on holiday

: Options include remote control – allowing you to turn on/off and dim lighting in a room or throughout the house – and intelligent lighting which mimics your daily use whilst you’re on holiday HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) . Smart heating controls (opens in new tab) are important as we become increasingly aware of our energy use — being able to monitor and change the temperature in each room/zone is one way of reducing consumption

(heating, ventilation and air conditioning) are important as we become increasingly aware of our energy use — being able to monitor and change the temperature in each room/zone is one way of reducing consumption Security options are numerous and include smart door entry systems and CCTV

options are numerous and include smart door entry systems and CCTV Importantly for most of us, internet provision.

Designing and Planning a Smart Home

The starting point is to give thought to how you live and how you’d like to live. Begin developing a wishlist — and decide on what elements are ‘nice to have’ a dedicated media room to watch films and sports) and what is a ‘need to have’ (reliable wireless throughout the house, for instance).

To do this, you should consider the following:

Visualise how you plan to use each room

Consider how the house will function as a whole, and decide whether you’d like some degree of integration (window blinds connected to the lighting for instance)

If you plan to live in your new home for the foreseeable future, deciding how your changing needs will be met should also shape your plans. “Consider how your rooms and home might change,” explains smart home specialist Alan Matthews of Automated Spaces (opens in new tab) . “Your tech requirements today are going to be different to those in the future; that playroom might become a study or a cinema room, for instance.”

Ultimately, your decisions regarding the technology for your smart home will come down to what you hope to achieve and your budget.

Do I Need a Professional to Create a Smart Home?

In very general terms, smart home tech can be divided into two areas: DIY smart home products which can be purchased ‘off-the-shelf’ and installed by the homeowner, and technology which requires professional install.

“DIY products offer a taster and can be a good solution at a basic cost,” says CEDIA Advanced Member Mike Ranpura of Smart Life AV (opens in new tab). There are a growing number of products that offer a level of connectivity and options such as voice control.

However, if you are considering including multiple elements of technology – smart lighting, blind control and security, for instance – or a whole-house solution, you ideally need a smart home installer.

They will design in and install technology according to your needs. They will also unify control, providing a single source of control, thus removing the need to open multiple apps or reach for different remotes.

A specialist installer/designer can also be very beneficial at the ideas stage, making suggestions you’d perhaps never considered. They can also help whittle down your wishlist to reflect your priorities and budget.

If you’re going to hire a smart home specialist, it’s a very good idea to do so early on in a renovation or self build project.

CEDIA (opens in new tab) – the smart home industry body – should be your first port of call when looking for a smart home installer.

Before hiring a specialist, make sure they have had previous experience working on projects similar to your own. It’s also a good idea to see previous examples of their work.

When is the Ideal Time to Plan a Smart Home?

There are numerous ways to create a smart home, including both wired and wireless options (Image credit: getty images)

A smart home relies on infrastructure — more specifically, cabling. This may include data cabling for internet provision, speaker cabling for audio and coaxial cable for TV, to name but a few. This cabling needs to be designed in and installed properly to ensure the right cabling is introduced in the right places.

Installation is more cost-effective when working with a blank canvas rather than a finished home. “It’s infinitely more expensive – and often messy – to install a cable when the room is finished,” says smart home specialist Owen Maddock of ConnectedWorks (opens in new tab).

Even if you instead plan to include wireless DIY products, ensuring your have reliable WiFi is normally essential and this again can be incorporated within your building plans (see below).

As such, building your own home or renovating a property can offer a more cost-effective opportunity to design a smart home — so long as you plan for it from the outset.

Ensuring Reliable Internet in a Smart Home

Even if you do not want an all-singing, all-dancing smart home, internet provision is key to most of us. Whether we’re working from home, browsing social media on our phones, or streaming the latest box set, high-speed, reliable internet provision is essential.

Again, introducing the infrastructure to achieve this can be done with relative ease while taking on a building project.

So why is this infrastructure so important?

It’s more reliable

Another issue for homeowners is that many building materials – such as steelwork, foil-backed insulation, glazing, etc – can be prohibitive to WiFi

“Good WiFi doesn’t just happen,” says smart home installer Alan Matthews of Automated Spaces. “You need to plan in advance in order to achieve robust coverage throughout the home.”

“The best and most reliable solution is to have several WiFi access points throughout the building — these are WiFi aerials, connected via data cables back to a central router,” explains Owen Maddock of ConnectedWorks. “The best access point systems are ‘active’; in other words, when you move about, the system moves your device over to the best aerial.”

A good way of achieving a wired and wireless (WiFi) network is to approach a smart home design/installation specialist.

This oak frame self build (with oak frame by Oakwrights (opens in new tab) ) features an extensive smart home set up — with Lutron home automation incorporating control of lighting throughout the home, as well as 12 electric blinds, a full video distribution matrix throughout the house, and a remote CCTV surveillance linked into an integrated alarm system (Image credit: Jeremy Phillips)

There are smart home solutions available for every budget (opens in new tab) — with DIY solutions from as little as £30, ranging into the hundreds and thousands.

Accurate costs are much more difficult to establish when it comes to professional design and install due to the variables involved — the complexity of the install, the house, the location, the technology you hope to include, for instance, will be unique to your project.

However, smart home installer and expert Mike Ranpura of Smart Life AV provides the following indicative costs:

Five Considerations for Smart Home Design

Detailed Planning Enables Smarter Homes

Smart home technology requires design considerations too, and they can affect construction as well as finish out planning. Incorporating an integration professional early in the design process can ensure that smart Home technology blends in seamlessly, and is not something that feels tacked on or an afterthought.

As a designer or architect, you look at many details to ensure a home meets the homebuyer’s desires. Room sizes, floor plans, electrical plans, and a myriad of other things are key to delivering the overall environment the client desires.

SEE ALSO: The Best Smart Technologies for your Interior Design

What’s Needed, Now and Later

The overarching consideration is deciding how much smart technology is needed. Smart home tech involves sophisticated control of lights, window treatments, entertainment systems, security, and climate. The sophistication comes from how easily the homeowner can control these things to his or her liking, and more importantly how effortless is the combined control of all of these for comfort, security, and entertainment.

Perhaps the owner doesn’t want every aspect of home control. As a designer, it would be wise to incorporate the infrastructure and the technology to accommodate future desires. While it’s impossible to anticipate all future technology, there are smart decisions that can be made to allow flexibility.

Lighting Control

While there are wired and wireless methods of integrating lighting control, custom wiring is the best approach for the most flexible solutions. Some considerations are where to place switches and keypads, and where to place them for single room control versus area and home control. Even if the client’s dream is full control of everything from a tablet or smartphone, it’s always wise to have smart physical control possibilities – making wiring placement critical. An integration professional can help choose the wiring that allows for lighting control from multiple vendors.

Audio and Video

Again, a robust wireless network can accommodate audio and video distribution in some situations. But for the best experience, most professionals would say you want to extend wiring to every room (and outside spaces) that will have entertainment options. Bringing 4K video and high-resolution music to multiple rooms without skips and stutters requires high bandwidth, making a wired system optimal. As designers, deciding where to place outlets for equipment is a prime consideration, taking into account prime viewing positions, room layouts, acoustics, and aesthetic considerations.

Security

The possibilities for security monitoring are manifold. Does a homeowner want to be alerted when their child comes home? Do they want disaster avoidance like water leak detection? Do they want to control access remotely via smart locks? These considerations can tie into wiring, and also aesthetics. Should cameras be visible in some places to project security? Is two-way audio needed to monitor children or pets? How visible should motion sensors be? These decisions can dictate wiring and power requirements, as well as specific equipment that may be desired for unique features or aesthetics.

Climate

Integrating smart thermostats like a Nest or Savant Wireless Thermostat is not technically difficult, and wireless technology works well for monitoring and control tasks. But where to mount them is a design consideration. Also, where to place additional sensors is another one. Depending on the HVAC installation (which may involve humidifiers and dehumidifiers) the placement of the control thermostats and sensors in zones need to balance function, convenience, – and aesthetics.

Consulting a professional early in the design process is the best way to ensure a home is going to be smart for years to come. To find out more about how we can make your smart home design fulfill your clients’ dreams, Contact us today!

How To Design A Smart Home: A Detailed Guide

New technologies came with a quest of integrating them in every possible sphere of our lives and the construction of smart homes became quite a trend lately. Most people are trying to build their own version of the smart home and make the home functioning easier. This varies from having your personalized voice assistant controlling some devices in your home to having whole systems, such as heating systems, functioning by a single button press. So if you want to make your home smart and even have your own program controlling all the devices in your home with just a tap on the screen, here is a detailed guide on how to design your smart home.

Smart Home Systems

There are whole systems, made in the form of the phone application that enable you to control all the smart devices in your homes such as air conditioning and heating systems, to some easier operations such as the washing machine, lights, and sound. All you need is a personalized app that will have all of your smart devices connected so that you can have complete control over them. Automated homes can be controlled from the insides and outside your home, where all the electrical devices can be actually connected. Systems such as HVAC, music systems, smart lighting, security and CCTV, and some other things such as WiFi and networks are automated with a single click. When you are looking for a perfect smart home system, you must be aware of your own needs and how you are going to use these operations. And the first thing that you must ask yourself is whether your home is suitable for this system and can you manage it?

A Smart Passive House with Green Roof in Moscow, Russia by Snegiri Architects

Smart Lighting and Audio Systems

Lighting is one of the most important parts of every home and it must be taken seriously when building your smart home since it is an entry point of your home. There is a whole variety of contemporary, smart lighting systems available on the market. A great number of smart lighting systems work perfectly fine without a central hub and are completely capable of communicating with other smart devices such as speakers or displays. These lighting systems can be connected either with WiFi or Bluetooth so that all the lights in your home can be controlled from your phone or tablet.

There is a whole range of different audio systems from the different manufacturers that make sophisticated multi-room speaker systems. This can help you connect your speakers via streaming websites such as Spotify and Deezer.

Heating Systems

One of the greatest perks of having a smart home is definitely an automated heating system. To be clear, the thing you are starting with is a smart thermostat that has the ability to ensure you both, comfort and lower power bills. The thing about smart homes is that it is a great initial investment that eventually pays itself off. The possibilities and benefits of these devices are numerous and go far beyond establishing heating and cooling of your home when you anticipate your own arrival so that you are met by the pleasant temperature. You can control them through an app, and also they are smart themselves. Since smart homes are all about sensors, they can detect your presence at home and activate the heating or cooling systems, and make systems such as HVAC operate when it is needed.

Villa Sophia – smart home with artificial intelligence by COLL COLL

Smart CCTV and Home Bells

Security is the top priority of your residence and you must keep a watchful eye on your home. The greatest thing is that these smart cameras can be set inside and outside of your house, and you can stay connected with them at all times so you can keep track of every small change in your home and preserve all of the information and recordings on the cloud and memory cards. Another layer of security is the home bells with the camera integrated. Some of these function with the sensors so that the pathway is illuminated with the presence of every object in motion. These bells also come with a LED screen where you can see a person waiting in front of your door or gate.

Smart homes became a technical demand because of the great electronic boom where homes slowly started to move towards complete automation. Depending on your budget, there are different upgrades you can make so that your home is operated through apps, and there are also different levels of automation ranging from the partial to the ultimate ones.