When Maria contacted the Smart Home Center requesting a consultation, we were delighted when we saw the new home that she had just purchased. Situated in the heart of a Cypriot village, Maria’s home was indeed impressive. Originally built in the late 19th Century, then lovingly restored in the 90s, the house comprised of a gorgeous central courtyard, complete with original stone tiles and overlooked by a balcony connecting the four bedrooms on the top floor.

The Brief

Maria purchased the house with a grand plan. She wanted to live with her partner in the downstairs spaces, and turn all four of the upstairs bedrooms into self catered rooms for rent on Airbnb to help with the mortgage. She therefore wanted some sort of automated entry system into the house, so that she did not have to constantly be meeting guests to let them into the property, or go to the trouble of handing over and keeping track of keys. She also wanted a way for her to know who is entering and leaving her house at any given time, and to be able to speak to a visitor remotely.

As the house is very large (500 square meters), she also did not want to have to constantly go round the rooms and switch off the lights when leaving home or going to bed. She also wanted the option to change the lighting brightness and colour. She desired to have music in every room, and strong Wi-Fi throughout the property for both herself and her tenants.

Maria had installed a central heating system, controlled via a very high tech Heat Pump system in the back yard. As the house is so large, she did not want to have all radiators turned on at all times, so she asked us to provide some sort of heating control system to maximize efficiency and minimize costs.

Most importantly, Maria said that she has a very busy life, and therefore did not want to spend lots of time learning lots of apps or systems to control her home. She wanted something that ‘just works’. When we suggested adding a voice assistant to let her control her home, her answer was ‘sounds exciting!’

The Solution

Strong Wi-Fi

First we started with the Wi-Fi. As the house was built in the traditional brick and mortar style of Cyprus Villages, we immediately identified the challenges of having strong Wi-Fi throughout the house. The walls were very thick, resulting in the signal from her Cablenet router weakening or becoming blocked all together the further away you stood from it. We therefore decided on Google’s mesh networking solution. Google Wi-Fi allows you to connect multiple wifi points together wirelessly throughout the home. Not to be confused with Wi-Fi ‘repeaters’, a Mesh Network is one that is made up of multiple access points, creating a strong Wi-Fi ‘blanket’ with a single network name throughout the home. This means that devices only see one network in the house, and will seamlessly jump to the strongest access point without any noticeable interruption in connection.

After installing 4 Google Wifi points, we tested the signal throughout the house by asking Maria to stream a Netflix movie onto her mobile phone while walking through each room in the house. She was amazed to see that despite her phone seamlessly jumping from one mesh point to another, there was no interruption or buffering in sight!

let there be light!

Next up was lighting. The challenge was to find a connected lighting solution that would be able to cover the whole house without having to lay down new wiring. .

For ths installation, we settled on Lifx, a tried and tested smart light company. Lifx provide bulbs that have a built in Wi-Fi chip, so that each bulb can connect directly to the home’s Wi-Fi without the need for complicated and costly hubs. Each light bulb is capable of over 16 million colours with adjustable brightness. Lifx provides a large range of different bulbs, all of which can be added to any traditional bayonet or tungsten screw light socket.

As Maria had installed a large number of vintage style light fixtures around the home, we proposed the Lifx Mini Color as the main model of light bulb, as the smooth lines of their design fit well with the aesthetic of the fixtures. For the bathroom, Maria had installed downlighting, so we also provided a number of Lifx GU10 bulbs which possess all the same multicolour functionality of their larger models. When Maria first saw her walk in shower lit up in cool purple, she literally shrieked with excitement!

For the courtyard, we decided on the stronger Lifx BR30+ as with only 4 light fixtures a higher output (lumens) was required. The BR30+ also have the advantage of emitting a strong infra-red light when they are switched off, which would further the visibility of any security cameras at night time. The fact that they are water resistant also made us more comfortable with having these enclosed in the outdoor light fixtures (the fixtures do stop rain from directly hitting the bulbs, but its better safe than sorry!).

Automated entry via pin number

After finalizing the Wi-Fi and lighting, Maria felt the house was ready to welcome its first Airbnb guest. She therefore wanted us to make the whole process of checking in guests and key handover simpler. So we started looking into smart locks. The property is accessed via a huge old wooden door, which was secured with a bolt and padlock from the outside. Therefore we realised that this immediately ruled out a large number of smart lock solutions that are available on the market. This is because many locks are installed on top of existing door locks, which unfortunately Maria’s door did not have. We therefore settled on the excellent Nest X Yale Lock. This is a complete lock solution provided by the Google owned company ‘Nest’, and built in collaboration with the respected and trusted security company ‘Yale’.

The Nest X Yale lock provided Maria with the ability to create Pin Numbers to send to each Airbnb guest in advance. So when a guest arrives, they would simply need to enter their Pin into the built in keypad on the front door, which in turn engages the electric motor inside to unlock the door. These pin numbers can be set to activate and deactivate on specific dates and times. After installing, we showed Maria how to create a pin for upcoming Airbnb guest and for her cleaner. For her Airbnb guest, she enabled the code to work only between the check in and check out days, and for her cleaner, she enabled it to allow entry on a specific day of the week between 8am and 1pm. We then tested the codes, and Maria was delighted to see a notification on her phone pop up say “The door was unlocked by Janet Cleaner”.

Hello can i help you?

Next up was the doorbell. The house only had a small old style bell attached to the front door, which made hearing when a visitor rang it difficult when Maria is on the other side of the house. We therefore chose the excellent Nest Hello doorbell, which is essentially a wide angled camera with a large illuminated doorbell and microphone attached. When a visitor presses the button, a notification pops up on Maria’s phone alerting her that someone is at the door. She can then see the live video of the visitor, and if necessary communicate directly with him or her via the Nest app. She could also of course press the unlock button to allow the guest entry into her house without having to physically be there. No more missed deliveries!

The Nest Hello is also an excellent security camera, as it can hold up to 30 days of history, and has built in facial recognition, which means that it can give you a list of faces that it has seen, and asks you to name them (for example Frank Williams). Once you do so, then when a visitor presses the doorbell, the house can announce ‘Frank Williams is at the door’. Facial recognition is also very helpful in that you can get an alert on your phone when an unfamiliar face is outside your property.

climate control

During the renovation, Maria had installed a very high tech Samsung Heat Pump system, which extracts heat from the environment and circulates it around the radiators in every room. Although very efficient, the size of the house meant the amount of electricity required to heat up all the rooms was excessive. Maria therefore only wanted to have the heating on when she was at home, and due to her busy lifestyle such times could not be easily predicted.

Our solution to this challenge was to install two devices; Tado Smart Thermostat, and Tado Smart Radiator Thermostat Valves. The Tado Smart Thermostat was used to replace the Samsung Controller of the heat pump. The Tado Smart Radiator Thermostats were used to replace every thermostatic valve on the radiators. These devices provided complete control of the home’s heating system to Tado smartphone app, which using Maria’s phone location, could tell if she was at home or away, and then make decisions accordingly on a per room basis. For example, when Maria leaves home, the heat pump and all radiators should be turned off. However when Maria is on her way home, the heat pump should turn on, and the Kitchen, dining room and living room should be set to 21 degrees. Around 10pm on Weekdays (and if Maria is at home), the bedroom temperature should be set to 21 degrees, and the kitchen, dining room and living room should be turned off. This ensures maximum efficiency, as only the rooms that are in use should be heated, and only if Maria is at home.

As for the summer months, we Maria needed a way for similar rules to take place on her ‘dumb’ air conditioner units. These units already existed when she purchased the house, and are controlled by the usual Infra Red Remote controllers. We wanted a way for Maria to be able to turn these on and off with her voice, or for them to react to the environment and turn themselves on or off automatically. So our first step was to convert them into Smart Devices. We achieved this by installing Broadlink RM Pro devices around the house. These devices can replicate the AC remotes by sending the same Infra-Red signals to the ACs. The command is sent using a smart phone app, or when connecting to a voice assistant (more on that later) can be turned on and off by voice. The excellent thing about the RM Pro is that it can learn any remote’s commands; you simply put it into learning mode, then press the button on the AC remote that you want it to learn. No more searching for the remote!

Voice control - Hello google!

What is a smart home, if you still have to press buttons?

After installing almost 70 devices into Maria’s home, Maria was starting to get worried about all the apps she would have to have on her phone. After all, nobody wants to have to open up loads of different apps to control their house. As it stands, Maria would have to come home, open the Nest app to unlock her front door, open the Lifx app to turn on her lights, and then open either the Broadlink or Tado app to control her AC/heating system. This is obviously far from ideal.

This is where the infamous smart speaker ‘Google Home’ came in. Google Home is essentially a speaker with a microphone attached. But the real magic starts when using its built in ‘Google Assistant’. We linked Google Assistant to all of Maria’s devices, which means she simply needs to say the wake up phrase, and then her command. For example when she says ‘Hello Google, Turn on the Lights and make the room 25 degrees’, then Google Assistant sends the lighting command to Lifx and the cooling command to Broadlink. Maria said that this is a bit of a long sentence, to which we replied ‘No Problem!’ and immediately created a ‘routine’ in Google Assistant. We called this routine ‘Coming Home’, with the command being ‘I’m home’. After this, all Maria has to say is ‘Hey Google, I’m home’ and her lights and AC will switch on immediately, which google politely says ‘Welcome Home Maria!’.

The great thing about Google Home is that they can use their speakers for more than just responding to you. They are able to stream music either directly from your phone (via bluetooth), or more amazingly they can stream directly from your favourite music service such as Spotify, Google Play Music or Audible. Of course, the quality of the music depends on the quality of the speaker, so we gave Maria the option of choosing from Google’s four options: Home Mini, Home, Home Max or the Home Hub. The best quality of sound is the Home Max, as it is designed with audiophiles in mind and therefore has two 114mm woofers and two 18mm tweeters making the sound truly incredible.

Maria wanted to have voice control and music in every room, so our challenge was to find the right mix of devices in order to satisfy her demands, but also keep the costs down. We therefore chose to put a Google Home Mini into the areas where sound quality wasn’t too important, such as the bathroom, courtyard and dining room, a Google Home Max in the living room and bedroom, plus a Google Home Hub in the kitchen. A benefit of the Home Hub is the fact that it has a screen attached, and so Maria could ask it cooking related questions such as ‘How do I make Spaghetti Bolognese’ and it will immediately bring up a step by step guide with pictures on the screen.

Finally, we linked the different Google Homes into different ‘speaker groups’, for example the Bedroom, Walk in Wardrobe and Bathroom speakers were linked into what we called ‘East Wing’. So Maria could then say ‘Play my library on East Wing’ and all speakers would immediately start to play her Spotify Library on all 3 speakers simultaneously.

one app to rule them all

Once we were satisfied that everything was working as desired, we wanted to consolidate all the apps onto Maria’s phone into one app. We also wanted the house to begin performing actions automatically in reaction to its environment. This is where the excellent open source, community built software ‘Home Assistant’ came in. Home Assistant was born out of a need to control the multiple smart home products that were available on the market. It is free to download and install, as it was built by and for the ‘open source’ community. It really is far superior from any of the store bought software out there, as it is not tied in to any specific smart home brand.

Once installed onto a Raspberry Pi (the world’s smallest desktop PC), we connected Home Assistant to Maria’s network and it immediately picked up many of the devices in the home. For the rest, a few bits of tinkering, coding and tweaking took place to get them to work. Luckily Home Assistant has an excellent online community, so nothing we wanted to do had not been done before, and so Home Assistant was quickly connected to the lights, speakers and climate devices of the house. We then installed the Home Assistant app onto Maria’s phone, which she can use even when away from home, providing a clean and clear interface for her to see and control everything in her home.

The final piece of the puzzle was the ‘automations’. These are ‘rules’ that we programmed Home Assistant to follow, in order for it to perform actions based on specific events. For example when Maria walks into her bathroom, a small motion sensor detects her motion, and turns the lights of the bathroom on. Then if there is no motion for 30 minutes, it slowly fades them out. Another excellent automation is when a light is switched on in any room, then home assistant checks the humidity level of that room, and if above safe levels, automatically turns on the AC on its dehumidify setting, until humidity is reduced. After this time, or if the lights are switched off, the AC is also switched off. A final automation we installed was what Maria found the ‘coolest’. Using the location of her phone, Home Assistant knows when she has left or arrived home. Based on this, it triggers events such as turn off all the lights when she leaves, or turn on the lights if she arrives home after sunset, plus turn on the heating/AC if the temperatures of specific rooms are above or below 21 to 27 degrees Celsius.

Wrapping Up

The Smart Home Center is truly grateful to Maria for providing us the opportunity to bring her gorgeous village house into the 21st Century. We are very proud of the work we have done, as the house is truly a magnificent example of how technology can increase quality of life by removing the mundane tasks of maintaining a home.

We visited Maria a month later, for her first ‘Maintenance and Optimisation’ visits. She told us that she feels like she is living in the future.