Smart Home
Insights
Everything you need to know about smart home technology, home security systems, and home automation, from lighting and CCTV installation to networking, home theatre, and multi-room audio.
Choosing an Intercom System for Your Home: 2-Wire, IP or Wi-Fi Doorbell?
Most conversations about an intercom system start the same way. Someone has a gate or a front door, they want to see who is there and let them in from wherever they...
Smart Home Upgrade: Repair or Replace an Ageing System?
A lot of Sydney homes built or renovated in the 2000s and 2010s had a smart home system put in: lighting control, a touchscreen in the kitchen, maybe a keypad by the...
Smart Home Troubleshooting: 8 Things to Check Before You Call an Installer
A smart home that stops working is more frustrating than an ordinary house that never worked that way. The lights will not respond to the keypad, the app says "unable...
CCTV Not Recording? Why Home Security Cameras Stop Recording and How to Fix It
Nobody checks their CCTV footage until they need it. Then something happens (a parcel goes missing, a car gets scratched, someone tries the side gate) and you open the...
SAL Pixie Smart Switches: Smart Lighting Without Rewiring
Most smart lighting guides assume you are building from scratch. Most people are not. They live in a house with ordinary switches and want lights they can dim, group...
Why Is My Home Alarm Beeping? Common Causes and Fixes
Home alarm beeping and will not stop? An alarm keypad that beeps every few minutes is one of the most irritating sounds in a house, and it tends to start at 2am. The...
C-Bus vs Dynalite vs KNX: How to Tell Which Lighting Control System You Have
If your home has keypads instead of ordinary light switches, it almost certainly runs a lighting control system. In Sydney homes, that is usually one of three: Clipsal...
Lost Your C-Bus Programming File? How C-Bus and Dynalite Systems Are Recovered
It is one of the most common calls we get. The lights mostly work, something needs changing or fixing, and nobody has the programming file. The original installer has...
Dynalite Not Working? Common Philips Dynalite Faults Explained
Dynalite not working? Philips Dynalite runs the lighting in plenty of Sydney homes, particularly larger houses and renovations from the 2000s and 2010s. It is a solid,...
C-Bus Not Working? Common C-Bus Faults and What They Usually Mean
C-Bus not working? Clipsal C-Bus has been running the lighting in Sydney homes since the late 1990s, and a lot of those systems are still going. When a C-Bus smart home...
Smart Home Installation in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs: Heritage Homes, Terraces and Apartments
The Eastern Suburbs presents a problem you don’t get in a new estate: the houses worth automating are frequently the ones hardest to automate. A…
Whole-Home Wi-Fi: Why Mesh Networking Is a Must for Modern Smart Homes
Here’s an uncomfortable truth about smart homes: when one goes wrong, it’s almost never the automation that failed. It’s the network underneath it….
Smart Home Automation on the Lower North Shore: Integrating Security, Lighting & Climate Control
Most homes we’re called into on the Lower North Shore already have “smart” things in them. An alarm from one company. Ducted air conditioning with its own…
One Trade, Zero Delays: How Hyper Automation Simplifies Smart Home Installation for Builders
You know the version of this that goes wrong. The lighting control supplier quotes the gear but doesn’t install it. The electrician runs the cable but…
Smart Lighting 101: How Automated Lighting Transforms a Sydney Home
Most people’s first experience of smart lighting is a bulb they bought online. It connects to an app, changes colour, and after three weeks nobody uses it…
Smart Home Security Installation for Northern Beaches Homes: A Local Guide to Coastal-Proof Automation
There is a specific failure we get called out to on the Northern Beaches more than anywhere else in Sydney. A camera installed two or three years ago,…
What Is a Smart Home? A Beginner’s Guide for Sydney Homeowners
Ask ten people what a smart home is and you’ll get ten answers. A voice assistant on the kitchen bench. A video doorbell. An app that turns a lamp on. All…