Smart Home Ideas: How to Build Technology into Your Interior Design

Most of our clients now expect some kind of technology in their home. Lighting that comes on in scenes, music in the kitchen, heating they can turn up from the train, blinds that close when the sun moves round. None of it is new any more. What still goes wrong is how it is planned.

The kit itself is rarely the problem. The problems we see come from cables in the wrong place, systems that don’t talk to each other, and decisions made after the walls are closed. So this isn’t a list of gadgets. It’s how we fit smart home ideas into an interior so they work on day one and still look good in ten years.

Smart home ideas start with the cabling

The single most useful thing you can do is run cables while the walls and ceilings are open. Wireless products are good, but a wired backbone makes everything more reliable and gives you options later.

On most refurbishments we now plan for:

• A CAT6 data point behind each TV, at the desk in any study, and in the main living spaces.
• Two or three wired wifi access points in a flat, more in a house, rather than one router straining from the hallway. On a recent flat in Knightsbridge, that was the brief from the start: data in the living room and both bedrooms, with access points placed for full coverage.
• Two CAT6 runs to intercom and door station positions, so there is a spare if one fails or the system is upgraded.
• External-grade cable for anything outside or in a garage. On a house in Hertfordshire we ran an external CAT6 down to the lift so its emergency button could connect.

We raise this early, at the design presentation stage, by asking each client where they want data points and whether any room needs built-in audio or TV points. It sounds dull, but it saves a great deal of chasing later.

Give the technology a home

All that cable has to end somewhere. In a house that might be a small plant room or a corner of the basement. In a flat it is often a cupboard under the stairs or in the hallway.

Treat it as part of the design rather than an afterthought. It needs ventilation, a power supply and room for someone to work. On a house in north London we didn’t have a cabinet where the data point needed to go, so we designed a small painted cabinet in the same green as the rest of that floor. It looks like a piece of furniture, not a home for the router.

Smart home lighting control

Lighting control is where we spend most of our technical time. Systems such as Lutron let you set scenes, so one button gives you “evening” or “dinner” rather than five separate switches.

Three things we’ve learned:

• Check every fitting is compatible. On a house in north London with an existing Lutron system, we sent each light fitting to the lighting engineer to confirm it would dim properly before we showed it to the clients. A beautiful wall light that flickers on a dimmer is a bad buy.
• Choose the keypads in person. For a cottage in Hampstead we arranged for the clients to visit the Lutron experience centre to see keypad finishes and how the scenes felt in real life. Keypads are touched every day, so they deserve the same thought as door handles.
• Mark keypad positions on the drawings. The electrician needs to know exactly where every panel goes. We put them on the lighting plan and confirm them on site before first fix.

Motorised blinds and curtains

Motorised blinds and curtain tracks are now one of the most requested smart home ideas we see, especially for tall windows and rooflights. The trap is choosing the motor separately from the control system.

On one house, the clients’ home ran on Lutron, but the curtain tracks that arrived used a different brand of motor. The question of how they would join the smart home came up after installation, which is the wrong time. Now we confirm the motor brand and the integration method with the AV installer before anything is ordered.

It is also worth knowing how the warranty works. Somfy, for example, offers five years on its motors and controls, but it runs from the date of manufacture, and claims usually go through the installer. Keep the installer’s details in your handover pack.

Heating controls and what “smart” can and can’t do

Remote heating control is now standard on most of our projects, and clients use it more than almost anything else. But it is worth asking what each control actually does.

On a house in Kensington, the electric heated towel rails were linked to Control4. It turned out the system could only switch them on or off, not run them at a lower setting, and one rail got far hotter than anyone wanted. The fix was simple once we knew, but the lesson stuck. Before you connect something to a control system, check what level of control you are getting, not just whether it connects.

Audiovisual design without the clutter

TVs and speakers are where technology and furniture collide. Our approach:

• Fix the TV position and bracket before first fix. On a recent project the TV bracket, its fixings and the sockets behind it all clashed, and the installer could not move it. Agreeing the exact height and bracket early avoids that.
• Design joinery around the kit. For a flat in Clerkenwell we took the exact dimensions of the soundbar before drawing the media unit, so it sat neatly under the TV with the right gap for sound.
• Hide what you can, ventilate what you hide. Equipment in a cupboard needs airflow and access. Ceiling speakers with square or frameless grilles disappear once painted.

AV planning is part of our interior design services, and you can see finished rooms across our design portfolio.

Security, CCTV and the timeline

Security systems are often handled by a separate company, which is fine, but their cabling has to fit into the build. On a house in St John’s Wood, the security contractor needed cable runs to doors and cameras, and the decorators couldn’t close up those walls until the routes were marked. We asked the security company to mark up the floor plans with every wall they needed to chase, passed it to the contractor, and fitted it into the programme ahead of a decorating phase of around four weeks.

Our advice: bring the AV, smart home and security installers in during the technical design stage, not once the plaster is drying. Ask each one whether they need cabling behind walls, and get it on the drawings.

Smart home ideas that age well

Technology dates far faster than a good kitchen or a well-made sofa. A few habits keep a smart home useful:

• Keep the cabling generous and the gadgets replaceable.
• Choose systems that work together, and agree one app or keypad family per home where you can.
• Always keep a manual option. Lights and blinds should still work from a switch if the wifi drops.
• Ask for a proper handover, with logins, warranties and the installer’s contact in one place.

Every home is different, and the right level of technology depends on how you live rather than what is available. If you’d like to understand how this fits into a wider project and budget, our pricing for interior design page explains how we work.

The best smart homes are the ones where you barely notice the technology at all.