Service · Survey €450
Fix a smart home that keeps failing
The installer has moved on, the documentation never existed, and three of the apps have vanished from the App Store. This is the most common call I get.
Almost nothing I'm called out to is actually broken. It's abandoned — commissioned once by someone who then left the island, never documented, and slowly degraded by four years of firmware updates nobody was watching.
What usually turns out to be wrong
The network. Nine times out of ten. A consumer router asked to cover 600m² of stone, access points daisy-chained wirelessly instead of wired, and a 2.4GHz band so congested that half the devices drop off every evening when the neighbours get home. Nothing above it can work reliably on that foundation. See networks and Wi-Fi.
Orphaned hardware. A proprietary controller from a manufacturer that has since been acquired, discontinued, or moved to a subscription model. Sometimes the hardware is fine and only the app is dead, in which case there's usually a local interface still available underneath.
No documentation. No KNX project file, no labelled distribution board, no record of which circuit is which. This is the expensive one, because the first job becomes reverse-engineering what's already installed.
Commissioning that never finished. Scenes named "Scene 4". Half the lighting groups unassigned. An automation that fires at the wrong time because nobody set the timezone. Very common, very fixable.
How the rescue works
It starts with a survey — half a day, €450, credited against whatever follows. I test the network properly with real measurement rather than by looking at bars on a phone, inventory every device, read whatever documentation exists, and find out what actually irritates you day to day.
You get a written report: what's installed, what's failed, what's salvageable and what three or four different levels of intervention would cost. If the honest answer is that you need a €400 access point rather than a €40,000 system, that's what the report says.
Almost nothing gets ripped out. The KNX stays. The lighting stays. The motors and the cabling stay. What changes is the network underneath and the interface on top — and that's usually a fraction of the cost of replacement, which is what a rip-and-replace installer will quote you.
What you end up with
- One interface — Apple Home, already on every phone in the house.
- A network that carries it, with coverage that reaches the gate and the pool house.
- Scenes and automations rebuilt around how the house is actually used.
- Written documentation you own — device inventory, network map, credentials, and the KNX project file if there is one.
- Optionally, ongoing monitoring so it doesn't quietly decay again.
What it costs
| Scope | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Survey and written report | €450, credited against the work |
| Commissioning fixes and scene rebuild only | €1,500 – €4,000 |
| Network rebuild plus consolidation into one app | €4,000 – €15,000 |
| Full rescue of a large, undocumented villa | €15,000 upwards |
Start with a survey
Half a day at the house, €450 fixed. A written report on what you have, what's wrong with it and what putting it right would cost — yours to keep whether or not you use me.
Book a survey →Questions
Straight answers.
The company that installed it has disappeared. Is that a problem?
It's inconvenient rather than fatal. If the system uses open standards like KNX it can always be taken over, though without the original project file the first job is mapping what's there. Genuinely closed proprietary systems are harder, and occasionally the honest answer is that a controller has to be replaced.
Will you have to take everything out?
Almost never. Cabling, actuators, motors and lighting hardware are usually fine and stay exactly where they are. The failures are nearly always in the network, the commissioning and the interface — the three cheapest layers to fix.
How quickly can you come out?
Surveys are usually within a week or two. If something is actually failing — no heating, no access, a security system down — say so and I'll prioritise it.
Is the survey fee really credited?
Yes, in full, against any work that follows. If you take the report and use someone else, you've paid €450 for an independent assessment, which is what it's worth on its own.