FAQs

In a Real Smart Home all smart devices are connected to a single app, so all of them can interact with each other.

The devices work together to automate repetitive tasks. Because just saying “Alexa, turn on the light” does NOT make a Real Smart Home. Instead, lights that are controlled by motion sensors in conjunction with the position of the sun, the amount of light, and other factors do.

You control a Real Smart Home by interacting with a personalised floor plan of your house, so everyone in the family recognises it immediately and can control the house without requiring any training.

Just a quick look at the floor plan gives you all the information that in other solutions requires multiple pages. This includes the status of lights, heating in different rooms, doors and windows, cameras, water leaks and fire alarms, and much more.

This floor plan is accessible from a mobile app available in both Android and iOS, as well as from the web, so you can use a smartphone, a tablet, a computer, and even a smart TV to access the app. Virtually any smart device with a screen can be used to access the floor plan.

Security is a top priority for any homeowner, and especially so in a smart home environment.

In a “Real Smart Home” all devices work together to give you the maximum control, including real-time alerts that allow immediate action upon threats like intrusion, water leaks, or fire.

With the addition of cameras with AI for object recognition, you can improve the accuracy of the alerts and reduce the false positives significantly. Want to know when a car pulls onto your driveway while you’re away on holiday? Add number plate recognition to significantly reduce the number of notifications you receive, as the system can ignore events like cars belonging to friends or family.

And of course, we understand the importance of internet security in today’s connected world. We take data protection very seriously and employ strong encryption and secure network protocols to safeguard your smart home.

It is quite the opposite; in a “Real Smart Home” the devices only work when they are needed, avoiding wasting energy when they are not.

On average, our customers save between 30% and 50% of their monthly energy bills after transforming their houses into real smart homes. For customers with heat pumps and fully electric houses, these savings can reach up to £1000 per year due to the optimised control over energy consumption.

You can see more details, including case studies from some of our customers here.

A “Real Smart Home” does not rely on an internet connection. Instead, all your devices connect to a dedicated server within your home, which acts as the “brain” of your smart ecosystem. This allows rules and automations to run locally, ensuring they continue to function even during an internet outage.

It’s important to note that only features requiring an internet connection, like remote access and phone notifications, will be affected by an outage. Everything else will continue to work as expected, including access to the app and control of your smart devices from within your home through the floor plan interface.

This is a tricky question, as the cost of a “Real Smart Home” is not fixed and depends on the number of devices and functionality you would like to add. But here are some of the advantages that our company offers:

• Complete personalised packages, so you get exactly the functionality you are looking for, and you don´t need to pay for extra devices or functionality you are not planning to use.
• Integration with existing devices: Do you already have smart devices at home? Brilliant, we will integrate them into our platform so you can enjoy the advantages of your new “Real Smart Home” without having to replace your current smart devices.
• A modular and scalable approach that allows you to grow over time. All our devices are compatible with each other, so it is completely up to you if you want to start with our basic setup and upgrade to more advanced features anytime, or go with a more advanced package and enjoy more functionality from day one.

In terms of running costs, a “Real Smart Home” can often pay for itself over time. This is because the significant savings achieved through resource and energy optimisation can offset the maintenance cost. For a more specific cost estimate, you can contact us directly and schedule a free consultation where we will discuss your needs and answer all the questions you might have. In the meantime, you can also check out this Post from our Facebook page with some example prices.

The number of rules and automations in a “Real Smart Home” is only limited by your imagination. These are some of the automations we have created for our customers:

• A single touch of a button when leaving the house turns all the lights off as well as the TVs and other selected appliances, while simultaneously activating the alarm, closing the door lock, and performing a checklist. If anything is wrong, it sends a sound notification and a message to the user´s phone with the alert (e.g., if any door or window is open, one of the pets is in the garden, etc.).
• The bathroom extractor fans don’t need to be turned on every time the light is turned on. Instead, they can activate automatically when high humidity is detected in any bathroom and turn off when humidity levels return to normal. A window sensor can be added to stop the extractor fan if a bathroom window is open.
• Similarly, Cinema Mode allows you to turn off the lights, close the blinds, adjust the volume of the TV or soundbar, and select the desired channel with a single press of your TV remote control.

And these are just some examples. In terms of automation in a “Real Smart Home”, the sky is the limit!

You can have a look at other examples in our Automation Ideas section.

You might be right, but let me ask you some questions about your house:

• Do you have to use multiple apps to control different devices like cameras, lights, heating, appliances, blinds, etc.?
• Do you need to talk to Alexa or Google when you want some action, like switching lights, to happen?
• Do you have limitations in the types of automations you can create because devices from different brands do not “talk” to each other?
• Do internet outages disrupt some or most of your smart home features?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, your house might not be as “smart” as it could be, and unfortunately, it does not qualify as a Real Smart Home.

A Real Smart Home seamlessly integrates all your devices, allowing smooth control and automation, regardless of brand or internet connectivity. It simplifies your life, not complicates it.

With over 2,500 integrations and thousands of compatible devices, our platform ties everything together. We can incorporate the lighting, climate controls, entertainment options, and security you have in place, no need for expensive replacements!

By integrating new technology with devices already in your home, we create cohesion through custom automation. Control it all effortlessly: music, lights, apliances, motorised blinds and curtains, electric vehicle charging, and more from one user-friendly centralised system. Our extensive compatibility lets us work with what you already have to build the automated home of your dreams.

At The Real Smart Home, customer satisfaction is our top priority. We design our systems for remote troubleshooting, eliminating delays caused by on-site service calls.

Furthermore, all our packages include a proactive monitoring system that constantly checks your home’s functionality. In most cases, if an issue arises, it’s often an internet outage. In these situations, we’ll notify you, saving you the time and hassle of discovering the problem yourself.

Our proactive approach ensures you receive timely alerts and eliminates unnecessary delays, allowing you to focus on more important things.

As we always say, a “Real Smart Home” simplifies your life, not complicates it.

They’re certainly established players, but The Real Smart Home offers a completely revolutionary approach that sets us apart. Here’s what makes us unique:

1. Unmatched Ease of Use: Forget fiddling with menus! Our app uses a personalised 3D floor plan of your house, so anyone in the family can control everything with a quick look (e.g., which lights are on, what rooms have the heating on, what doors or windows are open, etc.). It’s as easy as a cup of tea – no training needed!
2. Universal Device Compatibility: Unlike systems that limit you to certain brands, ours works with virtually every smart device on the market, no matter what brand or ecosystem they’re part of. We offer unmatched compatibility for over 2,500 brands and thousands of devices, ensuring your existing smart home devices can work seamlessly on our app. We’re happy to recommend you reliable, cost-effective devices based on our experience, but the decision is always yours.
3. Limitless Automations: With all your devices in one app, the possibilities for automations are endless. Imagine a home that automatically adjusts to your preferences, from setting the perfect mood lighting to adjusting the heating when you walk in. We’ll help you create automations that are as unique as your lifestyle.
4. Affordable Smart Home Solutions: Starting at only £1,000 with completely bespoke packages, you only pay for what you use. Unlike competitors with hefty upfront costs, we can even connect the devices you already own! See some example prices on our Facebook page, but remember, these are just starting points. We’ll discuss everything in detail during our initial consultation.
5. Ultimate Personalisation: Our 3D floor plans are completely customisable. You decide everything, from furniture placement and colour to the information displayed and how devices respond to your touch (tap, double tap, hold, etc.). The possibilities are endless!
6. Unparalleled Local Control: For ultimate peace of mind, our system prioritises local control. That means your app, floor plan, and automations all run on a small server inside your house. This keeps your data secure, and most features working even if the internet goes down.

Smart CCTV is a much superior technology compared to old CCTV systems (where you need to check the footage to see if anything happened, and always after it has happened when it is too late to be useful). Wouldn’t it be better if the CCTV could notify you of certain events, depending on the conditions? Just as an example, a notification of someone in your garden is not useful if you are home, as this “someone” will most likely be you, but the same event (person detected in the garden), when you and your family are away is a completely different story, and you most likely want to be notified about that, don´t you think? And that´s only one of the aspects where Smart CCTV comes in handy, these are other features of Smart CCTV:

• Smart Alerts: Get notified when people, pets, or vehicles are detected, only while you’re away.
• Number plate recognition: The system can read and store number plates and react accordingly. No more false alarms from the cat sitter!
• Extended Recordings: Forget trawling through endless footage. Smart CCTV captures only important events for months, not weeks! And the best of this is that you don´t need to choose between one and the other, as the Smart CCTV can be configured to store also 24×7 recordings for a certain period (for instance, it can record two weeks of 24×7 recordings as well as three months of events).
• Easy Event Search: Find what you need fast. The system shows relevant pictures, not hours of video!
• Hear What Matters: Get alerts for sounds like fire alarms or barking dogs. Keep an ear on your home, even from afar!

We are glad to hear that, please check out our FAQ for electricians, where we answer this and other questions we have received from electricians, and contact us using the form below.