Early planning key to smart-home success

Vimal Mohanan from ABB Electrification says that for smart-home benefits to really be felt, they need to be part of the planning considerations from the outset.

Smart-home technology used to be viewed as a gimmick for gadget lovers and as a luxury rather than an essential. In recent years, though, this view has shifted. Automation can enhance inclusive design in the form of voice control, automated shading (co-ordinating blinds for cost-effective heating and cooling) and scene recall (systems can be set to be activated based on conditions such as time of day, weather, motion or temperature sensor information to, for example, turn on the lights and adjust the thermostat when motion is detected in a room). This provides practical support for older residents and those with mobility or cognitive challenges. By incorporating smart technology in the home, it can increase the longevity of the property by making it adaptable to different residents’ needs.

Smart-home technology is also seen as essential to running a building to optimum energy efficiency, so its demand is no longer limited to tech enthusiasts. In 2025 in the UK, nearly half of homeowners expressed an interest in adopting smart technology for lighting, heating and security, while in North America more than 41% of households already own smart-home products. Globally, the market is forecast to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 23% between 2025 and 2032.

Even though the added value of connectivity in the home is increasingly understood, widespread adoption is hampered by outdated perceptions among some consumers and developers. A saturated smart-home app market, as well as the perceived high complexity and cost of installation, is holding many back. This is compounded by developers’ tendency to treat smart-home technology as a bolt-on after the fact rather than embedding it in new properties from the outset.

Building in anticipation, not afterthought

The Bowers, a recent residential development in Kent, offers a case study on the practice of ‘smart from the start’. Developer Hillstone Homes partnered with ABB and electrical contractor Faulkner & Sons to deliver integrated automation as standard, covering lighting, heating, blinds, door entry and audio-visual.

A wired infrastructure was opted for because it can be easily expanded wirelessly for future upgrades, with a central system access point. This approach reduced cabling complexity and allowed structured wiring to run through ducts alongside the main electrics. From an engineering perspective, this illustrates a key advantage of integrating systems during build as it minimises the risk of future disruption; it builds an electrical backbone in the property, which is capable of both current functions and later expansion (for example, adding electric vehicle (EV) chargers or occupancy sensors).

By contrast, retrofitted systems often require additional channelling, unreliable wireless bridging or other piecemeal upgrades, which rely on disparate technologies interfacing with each other. Automation networks are best viewed as core building services, not temporary add-ons.

One of the most common causes of ‘failed’ smart systems is end-users disabling or overriding them because they are viewed as too complex to manage. At the Kent development, installers used preprogrammed device identifiers to allocate functions room by room, testing scenes such as ‘All Off’ before handover. This avoided obscure coding and ensured systems were easy for residents to adjust themselves.

Most importantly, owners were introduced to a single control interface (via wall panels or smartphone app), rather than multiple apps for different devices. As Director Darren Faulkner noted, homeowners were able to control their homes “from day one, without needing an installer every time they changed their routines”.

The key lesson is that handover must include proper user training and documentation. Without that, residents often revert to manual overrides or disable systems out of fear of energy costs, negating any efficiency gains.

Sustainability and compliance drivers

This is vital because the major drive for the installation of smart-home systems is energy efficiency. Under Part L and the Future Homes Standard, developers must demonstrate low-carbon performance. Smart zoning of heating, scheduling of HVAC and integration of shading with occupancy all contribute to measurable energy savings.

The Energy Saving Trust also emphasises that smart tariffs, automated load shifting and intelligent charging for EVs can directly contribute to grid decarbonisation. Case study evidence shows that integrated systems make it technically feasible for new homes to support dynamic energy management and low-carbon electrification without later retrofit headaches.

The UK’s New Towns Taskforce stresses that communities must be designed with the same foresight as water, energy and transport infrastructure, but even it does not make explicit mention of smart-home technology. Projects like the Bowers are small in scale, but when multiplied across developments and entire next-generation new towns, the cumulative benefits – but also the infrastructure demand – escalates.

Smart homes generate vast amounts of data flowing to cloud platforms. This increases pressure on networks and contributes to the global boom in data centre energy consumption, which is projected to double to 1,000TWh by 2026. Engineers therefore need to consider not only the indwelling systems, but also connectivity resilience, edge processing options and the knock-on effect of mass electrification on national grids.

Pitfalls to avoid

• Fragmentation: without a central integration strategy, homes risk being saddled with many different apps. Interoperability standards such as Matter and KNX help avoid this, as well as apps such as ABB-free@home (as used in the Bowers), which bring other third-party apps under one central interfac
• poor infrastructure planning: inadequate wifi coverage or insufficient cabling capacity can cripple usability. Hybrid wiring plus well-placed access points are best
• overreliance on bespoke coding: easily reconfigurable systems outlast niche proprietary programming; and
• insufficient handover/testing: engineers should simulate occupancy scenarios (holiday mode, ecosettings, remote access) during commissioning, with residents present.

Adaptable and future-ready

Smart-home technology is necessary to meet rising energy and carbon standards, as well as enhancing inclusive design for older residents and those with mobility and cognitive challenges – and it requires serious consideration from the start.

Bolt-on automation risks the frustration of higher costs for both developers and residents, as well as missing efficiency opportunities. The Bowers is a best-practice example of streamlined installation, as well as a future-proofed capacity for emerging technologies – the modular cabling and wireless capability means the owners can integrate solar panels, home batteries or EV charging later with minimal disruption. One note of caution though: obsolescence of the technology will be much quicker than the surrounding building, so the life-cycle of the smart equipment in a building needs to be properly considered from the start too.

From small-scale developments to large-scale new towns, we must approach smart-home systems not as consumer gadgets, but as critical infrastructure that will shape the performance, safety and sustainability of our housing stock for decades to come.

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