Smart Home Technology: How to Plan & Design Your Smart Home

Smart home technology has come on leaps and bounds over the past few years, and more and more self builders and renovators are finding ways of incorporating this tech into their everyday lives and new home’s infrastructure. A decade ago, you might have dismissed the concept of a smart home with fully integrated heating, lighting, security and audio visual as a fad. A well-designed and seamlessly integrated automation system, though, now has the potential to transform the way you interact with your property.

Smart home technology can broadly be divided into two categories – DIY smart home products purchased off-the-shelf and set up by the end user, and fully integrated (usually hard-wired) setups that require professional installation. Every house has at least a basic level of heating, lighting and security.  Smart home tech, however, can give you maximum control over how the building runs – boosting efficiency and saving you money in the long-term.

Getting it right is all about integrating devices that will change how you interact with your property. “A real smart home should make life easier and give you more time for living rather than cluttering up your day with tech gimmicks you have to babysit,” says Philipp Schuster from Loxone.

From the key considerations to smart heating and whole-house automation, here we’re investigating how you can use smart home technology to design, build and specify a smart setup that works for you.

What Can Smart Home Technology Do?

Broadly speaking, smart technology can be divided into several areas: audio visual, lighting, security, and heating/ventilation/cooling. You might cherry-pick just a few of these elements, or choose to bring them all together in one whole-house package.

When planning your smart home, start by considering who will live or lives in the property, both now and in the future, and what their needs might be. Think about how each person enjoys music or streams TV, for instance, who works or studies from home, what security provisions might be useful and what lighting controls are required. “Be clear on your objectives and essentials to begin with,” says Darren Palmer, director of sales at Baulogic.

This smart home was designed by 2020 Architects and features a whole-home Loxone system supplied by Epitome Living, finished with Keylite Roof Windows’ automated rooflights

Taking a room-by-room approach can be helpful. Assess how you currently use spaces and how your changing needs over the years might help shape your plans. Perhaps a downstairs playroom could one day be converted into a cinema room or home office?

It’s also useful to think about how different systems can be integrated alongside one another. For example, you might want a coordinated setup where automated blinds work alongside your light fittings to create pre-programmed scenes at the swipe of a button.

Learn More: Lighting Design: The Ultimate Homeowner’s Guide

Does a Professional Need to Install my Smart Home Technology?

DIY products can provide a useful entry-level solution into the smart tech arena. However, an integrated setup that coordinates various systems (heating, lighting, security etc) will pave the way for better connectivity and a more seamless experience that’s fully tailored to your needs.

The sooner you engage a professional to help plan this, the more efficient the results will be. At the early design stage of a project, an experienced smart home installer may bring ideas you might not have considered. They’ll also help you plan a system that reflects your aspirations and budget. “Plus, a seasoned professional will have done this sort of project lots of times – we know which brands are solid,” says Owen Maddock, smart home specialist and owner of Cinema Works.

Bringing a suitable qualified installer on board early means they can effectively plan what cabling needs to be fitted and where. For instance, most homes will not have wiring installed around the windows by default – but if you plan on fitting smart blinds, this is essential.

Where Should my Smart Home Technology Go?

Think about how you can accommodate the brains of the system in the design phase – many self builders will already be planning to incorporate a fully-fledged plant room, for instance. “Your technology needs are likely to grow over time, so make sure that tech isn’t shoehorned in between electrics and heating in a too-small services cupboard,” says Owen. “Make sure it’s well-ventilated, too, or your equipment could overheat and fail earlier than it should. Allow for active cooling fans if you can.”

This new build home in Aberdeenshire features an integrated smart system from ABB-free@home, which controls the heating and lighting. Cables were also run beside the windows to install automated blinds at a later date. Designed by John Willox, the contemporary kitchen suite is from Rotpunkt

Do I Need a Good Internet Connection?

Don’t overlook the importance of reliable internet provision throughout your home, as this is crucial for many smart devices. When factored in from the design stage of your project, wires can be run strategically to ensure broadband is well distributed. Anything that can be hardwired to a network port, such as your smart TV, should be. This will free up the Wi-Fi connection for fully wireless devices such as phones and tablets.

Can I Go Fully Wireless with Smart Home Technology?

If you’re keen to take a fully integrated, whole-house approach, the broad consensus is that a wired infrastructure provides superior performance and flexibility. But wireless solutions do have their place – particularly if you want to add functionality to an existing home, but don’t intend to knock down walls or strip out floors to run cabling. The snag is that the more devices you have connected to your home’s Wi-Fi, the greater the potential for the system to slow down or freeze.

One way to alleviate issues around sluggish connectivity is to do away with your internet provider’s router and fit a more powerful model instead. Incorporating hard-wired access points (WAPs) will also deliver better connectivity than using Wi-Fi boosters. Released in 2019, Wi-Fi 6 is the gold standard for wireless routers and access points to distribute internet from strategic locations around the house. Wi-Fi 7 is currently under development and, while it’s not likely to launch until late 2024 at the earliest, some manufacturers have already announced routers and devices that support this standard.

Let’s take a look at the different kinds of of smart home technology and how you can incorporate them into your self build or renovation plans:

Smart Home Heating

Smart home heating systems can help you maintain a close eye on energy consumption, essential with the current surge in utility prices.

Digital thermostats work alongside smart phones, watches and tablets, allowing you to manage your heating on-the-go. So, you can tap a button remotely to stop the heating from coming on when you’ve not come home as planned, or turn it off if you’ve left the house and realised you left the boiler going. You can also manage individual radiators and choose to zone temperatures, without having to go round every room and check the various thermostats.

Smart home heating controls can go even further than this, adjusting themselves as they learn about your household routine or checking in with the weather forecast. “Our Wave controller works intelligently with your boiler to only fire up at the power needed to reach the right temperature,” says Martyn Bridges from Worcester Bosch. “Features like this allow you to avoid wasting energy, and in turn help to cut your bills.”

You’ll also be able to fully understand your household energy consumption, and adjust any unwanted habits accordingly.

Read More: Can Smart Heating Save You Money?