Planning a smart home renovation

The best smart homes are the ones you never think about. Lights already at the right level when you walk in, heating that follows the household rather than a timer, blinds that close themselves at dusk, and no wall covered in mismatched switches. The difference between that and a drawer full of abandoned gadgets is almost entirely a matter of when the decisions were made.

Technology has to be designed into a renovation at first fix. Retrofitting it afterwards means lifting floors, chasing walls and repainting rooms you have only just finished.

Start with the infrastructure, not the products

Products change every few years. The infrastructure behind the plaster should last decades. Get these five things right and almost any future system can be accommodated.

Containment

Conduit and draw cords between floors, from the plant or comms position to each room, and out to the loft and the garden. Empty routes are the cheapest insurance in the whole project: they let a future system be installed without breaking anything.

A comms position

A ventilated, accessible cupboard or rack location with power, a hardwired network connection and space for the router, network switch, patch panel and any control processors. Not the loft, where it will overheat, and not behind a wardrobe.

Structured cabling

Data cable to every position that might ever need it: televisions, desks, wireless access points, doorbell and camera positions, the equipment rack, the heating manifold, the entry panel. Wired connections are faster, more stable and lower in latency than anything wireless, and they cost very little while the walls are open.

Wireless coverage

Plan ceiling-mounted access points room by room rather than relying on a single router. In a house with solid masonry walls and steel beams, coverage is a design exercise, not a hope.

Power and circuits

More sockets than you think, in the places you actually use, plus dedicated supplies for the rack, the plant space and any external equipment. Crucially, decide the lighting circuit topology before first fix: which fittings group together as a circuit, whether they are switched or dimmed, and whether the dimming lives at the fitting or in a central panel.

Lighting control

Lighting is where a well-planned system earns its keep every day. The design work is deciding what each room has to do at different hours — cooking, working, eating, winding down — and grouping the fittings into layers that can be recalled as scenes from a single uncluttered keypad.

Practical points that must be settled early:

• Circuit grouping and dimming method, which determines the cable routes at first fix.
• Whether control is centralised in a panel or distributed at each switch position.
• Driver compatibility with the fittings chosen, so nothing flickers at low levels.
• Colour temperature and output consistency across the house.
• Discreet local override, so a guest can still turn a light on and off.
• External and garden lighting on the same system, with astronomical timing.

Heating and comfort

Zoning is the single biggest comfort gain. Underfloor heating downstairs and radiators above, each on its own zone with its own sensor, lets the house be warm where it is occupied and quiet elsewhere. That requires the manifold position, zone valves, sensor cabling and control wiring to be planned alongside the pipework, not after it.

Consider mechanical ventilation with heat recovery in an airtight extension or a converted loft, sensible extract and interlocks for bathrooms and kitchens, and cooling only where it is genuinely needed and can be accommodated without spoiling a ceiling.

Security, access and entry

• Door and window contacts, movement detection and an alarm panel wired at first fix.
• Camera positions with data and power in place, chosen for coverage rather than quantity.
• A video entry panel at the gate or front door, on the network so it can be answered from anywhere in the house.
• Electronic locks or keypads where they suit the household, with a mechanical fallback.
• Careful thought about who has access, where recordings are stored and how long they are kept. Privacy and data protection are part of the design.

Audio, video and the things that ruin a room

Multi-room audio, a discreet television position, concealed speakers and a hidden equipment rack all depend on the same thing: cable and structure agreed before plastering. Fix bracket positions and heights, allow ventilation behind screens, and plan how cables reach a wall-mounted television without a trunking box beneath it. Ceiling speakers need coordinating with joists, downlights and ventilation — an exercise best done on a reflected ceiling plan rather than by argument on site.

Energy

A renovation is the natural moment to prepare for lower-carbon services, even if you install them later.

• EV charging: a duct from the consumer unit to the parking position, and a check on the capacity of the incoming supply.
• Heat pumps: space for the external unit and a hot water cylinder, larger pipework, and emitters sized for lower flow temperatures. Fabric first — insulation and airtightness — always pays before plant.
• Solar and battery storage: roof orientation and structural capacity, plus a cable route and a battery location that is safe, ventilated and accessible.
• Metering and monitoring: a simple way to see consumption, which is what actually changes behaviour.

Why coordination matters more than any single product

A smart home touches the electrician, the audio-visual specialist, the heating engineer, the alarm installer, the network installer, the joiner making the panel doors and the decorator who must not paint over the keypad back box. Each of them has a view about sequence. Somebody has to hold the reflected ceiling plans, the containment schedule and the commissioning dates in one place, and make sure the plasterer does not arrive before the cabling has been tested.

That is the role we play through smart home and technology integration, supported by project management and coordination, our collaboration with expert professionals, and the joinery detailing that conceals all of it under custom finishes and bespoke solutions. After handover, systems need updates and occasional attention, which is covered by post-renovation support and maintenance.

A first-fix checklist

1. Agree a comms position with power, ventilation and access.
2. Run data cable to every screen, desk, access point, camera and control position.
3. Install empty conduit between floors, to the loft and to the garden.
4. Sign off lighting circuits, dimming method and scene groupings before cabling.
5. Fix heating zones, sensor positions and manifold location with the pipework.
6. Install alarm, entry and camera cabling at first fix.
7. Lay an EV duct and check supply capacity.
8. Coordinate reflected ceiling plans between lighting, speakers and ventilation.
9. Write a commissioning and handover plan, with someone named as responsible.

None of this is exotic, and none of it is expensive while the walls are open. It simply has to be decided in the right week. If you are also weighing up timescales, our guide to how long a London renovation takes sets out when each of these decisions falls due.

Look through our projects to see how quietly this can sit in a finished house, or tell us about your property.

General guidance for 2026, not professional advice. Every property, supply and system differs; electrical, heating and energy installations must be designed, installed and certified by suitably qualified professionals.