A simple smart home system, from installation to intuition

20 years ago, smart homes were a luxury, reserved mostly for the wealthy or those who were ultra-passionate about the technology. Home automation tech as we know it today was in its infant stages back then, so these barriers endured until the technology advanced and became more accessible.

In 2022, smart homes are much more ubiquitous than in 2002, and the barriers to having them in a New Zealand house are much fewer. Still, many homeowners across the country hold back on pulling the trigger because of a perception that upgrading to a smart home is costly, time-consuming and arduous.

Many smart home electricians may feel similarly — that installing a smart home or home automation system requires extensive knowledge of new systems and techniques.

But if the right solution is used, both of these barriers come crashing down.

“It’s much easier than people think,” says Paul Sievers, the managing director of Devonport Electrical, and a veteran electrician. “A lot of us have been led down the garden path into thinking that it’s going to cost thousands of dollars and be a pain to install.

“But this doesn’t have to be true, especially if you use Legrand smart home products.”

A specialist in electrical products digital building systems, Legrand has spent the last few decades honing both their knowledge of and products pertaining to full home automation. Now, they’re one of New Zealand’s largest suppliers of smart home products and systems.

Andy Ness from Legrand says that this ease-of-use is primarily achieved through one thing: a device dubbed a ‘gateway’, a module that is attached to the switchboard, allowing for wireless connection to smart devices and linking them to the home WiFi network.

“The gateway can be easily installed by any registered electrician — it only takes up a couple of DIN spaces in the switchboard,” says Andy. “And once that’s done and it’s connected to the Wi-Fi, this opens the door for the entire home to be smart.”

After installing the gateway, it’s just a matter of installing the new powerpoints that will connect to the gateway, which allows for users to remotely control them — and these are installed in the same way as any normal powerpoint.

Then homeowners can just download the app, and voila — they have complete remote control over each powerpoint and light fitting, with the ability to tailor their electronics, appliances and hardware to a minute degree.

For example, users can turn on a spa pool at their beach house the day before they arrive so it’s pre-warmed, or a kettle can boil water at the exact same time every morning. Lights can be controlled individually or by room, with their brightness dependent on the time of day, or switching on automatically when someone walks past the threshold.

“We want to ensure that the automation is fully customer-adaptable,” says Andy. “It empowers homeowners to create scenarios and schedules that suit their lifestyles as well as their changing circumstances.”

As someone who has interacted with Legrand’s solutions from both an electrician’s perspective as well as a homeowner’s, Paul says the experience has been a breeze on both sides of the aisle.

“For electricians, it’s basically just installing a gateway and swapping out light switches and powerpoints,” he says. “For homeowners, the app is really intuitive — it’s very easy to control lights and appliances, but it can also give you insights into your energy consumption too. It can give you consumption readings by day, week, month or year, sorted by room or appliance type.

“So it doesn’t just deliver convenience — it delivers personalisation, it delivers valuable insights into energy habits,” says Andy.

“The technology has really caught up in the past few years: it’s intuitive, it’s easy to use, and there are always improvements on the horizon.”

Learn more about Legrand and its offerings.