Service
Home Assistant Integration, Gold Coast
The platform you fully own, installed by someone who runs it themselves. Home Assistant on a local controller, automation logic that runs without internet, retrofit relays behind your existing switches, and a mobile dashboard that keeps working when the cloud doesn't. No subscriptions, no vendor lock-in, no chance of waking up to find your house disabled because a company you've never heard of pivoted their business model.
Who Home Assistant is right for
Home Assistant is not the right answer for everyone. It's the right answer for a specific kind of homeowner. If any of these describe you, the platform fits.
- You've been quoted Control4 or Savant and the cloud-dependency, ongoing dealer fees, or vendor risk made you uncomfortable
- You've already got smart devices in the house (lights, locks, climate, cameras, solar, EV charger) and they don't talk to each other because each runs on a different app
- You're building or renovating and want infrastructure that doesn't lock you to a single vendor for the next twenty years
- You care about whether your data stays on the property
- You want lighting scenes, climate routines, and presence-aware automation, but not at the cost of needing an active subscription to switch on the lounge lights
- You've experimented with Home Assistant yourself, hit the limit of weekend hobbyist time, and want it set up properly by someone who'll actually finish it
If you want a fully cloud-managed system with a single dealer who handles everything for an annual fee, that's a legitimate choice. Control4 or Savant are good at it. If you want infrastructure you own, that's this page.
What the System Audit actually covers
Every Home Assistant install starts with a paid System Audit, residential $450, 2 to 3 hours on site. The audit isn't a sales visit. It's an engineering assessment that produces a written report you keep regardless of whether you proceed with the install. Here's what we measure:
1. Existing electrical and switchboard
Home Assistant is a software platform, but a smart home is hardware. We open your switchboard and confirm the circuit count, RCD coverage, AS/NZS 3000 compliance status, and whether there's room behind your wall switches for retrofit relays. Many older homes need a switchboard tidy or partial upgrade before a smart layer makes sense. Better to know that on day one than discover it three weeks into a project.
2. Existing network
The router, the Wi-Fi coverage, the cabling, the ISP connection. Home Assistant on a local controller doesn't need internet to work, but it needs a reliable internal network. We test Wi-Fi signal in every room, identify dead zones, check whether the existing router will handle the device count we're adding, and assess whether a network upgrade is part of the scope.
3. Existing devices and their integration paths
Your aircon, your lights, your locks, your blinds, your security system, your solar inverter, your EV charger, your cameras. Each one has an integration path into Home Assistant: some native (Matter, Zigbee, Z-Wave), some via manufacturer API (Daikin, Mitsubishi, Tesla), some via local protocol (MQTT, Modbus). The audit confirms which devices you already own can be integrated cleanly and which would need replacement.
4. Internet reliability and failover needs
Home Assistant runs locally, but if you want remote access from your phone, you need internet. We assess your NBN reliability (a real concern on waterfront builds where the connection is patchy) and recommend whether a 5G failover router is worth adding. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Depends on how much you actually need remote control versus on-site control.
5. Your actual use cases
The boring but important conversation: what do you actually want this thing to do? Lighting scenes? Climate that follows occupancy? Security that arms when the last person leaves? Solar load management that runs the pool pump only when the inverter has spare? Each use case has different complexity. Some are an afternoon. Some are a fortnight. The audit nails down scope so the install quote isn't a guess.
6. Physical location for the controller
Home Assistant runs on a small controller (Home Assistant Green or a more capable Yellow or x86 server, depending on scope). It needs power, ethernet, and ventilation. We pick a location that's accessible for future maintenance but not in the kitchen or living area where the fan noise would annoy you.
The audit produces a written report with photos, device inventory, recommended scope, and a fixed-price quote for the install. Fee credits 50 percent against installation when you proceed within 90 days. If you don't proceed, you keep the report and the device inventory. Useful documentation regardless.
What audits typically uncover
After enough System Audits on Gold Coast homes, certain patterns repeat. These are the four most common findings.
1. The smart devices already installed don't talk to each other
Most homeowners have accumulated devices over years: a Nest thermostat, Hue lights in two rooms, Ring doorbell, Tesla EV charger, a Daikin aircon controller, an old Sonos system. Each runs in its own app. Home Assistant brings them under one roof, but only if the integration paths exist. Audits typically find seven to twelve existing smart devices, and we map which ones can be integrated cleanly versus which need replacement.
2. The network needs work before the smart layer goes on
Consumer routers struggle once you push past forty connected devices. A typical fully integrated Home Assistant install hits that count quickly between lights, sensors, and accessories. Many audits include a recommendation to upgrade the router and add at least one Wi-Fi access point. We can install Peplink routers and Ubiquiti UniFi access points as part of the same project.
3. The switchboard is fine but the wall boxes aren't deep enough
Retrofit relays (Shelly Matter, primarily) sit in the wall cavity behind existing switches. Modern double-gang boxes have room. Older single-gang boxes sometimes don't. The audit confirms which switches can take a relay versus which need a deeper box swap as part of the install.
4. The use cases the homeowner described aren't quite what they actually want
Most people start the conversation with a feature list. Two hours into the audit, the actual use cases emerge. "I want lighting scenes" usually means "I want the bedside light to come on dimmed when I get up at 3am." "I want climate automation" usually means "I want the aircon to stop running when nobody's home." Specific use cases drive simpler, cheaper, more reliable automation than vague feature lists.
What the install actually involves
A typical Home Assistant install for a four-bedroom Gold Coast home runs across three to five working days, scheduled in evening or weekend blocks. The work falls into four phases:
Phase 1: Controller, network, and core stack
Install the Home Assistant controller (Green for smaller scope, Yellow or x86 mini-PC for larger scope), set up Zigbee and Thread coordinators, configure the core network if upgrades are part of scope, install retrofit relays behind switches in priority rooms. Day one or two of the install. End of phase one: lights and a few core integrations working from your phone.
Phase 2: Device integration
Connect existing devices (aircon, solar inverter, EV charger, locks, cameras, blinds) into Home Assistant via their respective integration paths. Configure dashboards. Test each device individually. End of phase two: every existing smart device under one roof, controllable from one app.
Phase 3: Automation logic
Build the automations that make it a system rather than a remote control. Lighting scenes for morning, evening, night, away. Climate routines tied to occupancy. Solar load management if applicable. Security tie-ins if applicable. End of phase three: the system does things on its own without you asking.
Phase 4: Handover and training
Two-hour training session covering daily use, the mobile app, how to add devices later, how to back up the configuration, what to do when something acts up. You receive the system documentation pack: credentials, equipment inventory, network diagram, automation logic explained in plain language. End of phase four: you own the system and can run it.
The first three months after handover are covered by labour warranty. Beyond that, you can run the system yourself indefinitely, ask us back for changes at standard hourly rates, or ask another Home Assistant installer to pick it up. We don't charge ongoing dealer fees and the system isn't tied to any subscription you have to renew.
Available packages
Home System Audit, from $450 (Zone 1)
2 to 3 hours on site, written PDF report, photo documentation, device inventory, recommended scope, and a fixed-price install quote.
Combined Estate Audit, from $900 (Zone 1)
For clients with both a home and a vessel where integration crosses both. Single combined report, integration roadmap covering both sites.
Final scope and pricing land after the audit. Audit findings credit 50 percent against installation when you proceed within 90 days. See /pricing/ for the full pricing structure.
The technical case for local-first
Most smart home platforms run in the cloud. The vendor's servers process your automations, store your data, and decide whether your house responds. That model has obvious commercial benefits for the vendor and several real risks for the homeowner. Here's the technical reasoning behind running locally instead.
Cloud-dependent platforms stop working when the internet drops
Control4, Savant, and most consumer smart home brands route automations through their servers. When your internet drops (and on Gold Coast waterfront NBN, that's regular), the lights stop responding to the app, scenes stop firing, and routines stop running. Sometimes basic local control still works, sometimes it doesn't, depending on the brand. Local-first means automation logic runs on a controller in your house. Internet drops, the house keeps working.
Vendor risk is real and underrated
Smart home companies fail, get acquired, or pivot. The Insteon shutdown in 2022 left tens of thousands of homeowners with bricked systems and no recourse. Wink has been on borrowed time for years. Even Apple has wound down product lines that thousands of homes depended on. Open-source platforms can't be shut down by their vendor. There's no vendor with the keys. Home Assistant is maintained by a foundation and a global contributor community. Worst case the project itself stops being maintained, your existing install keeps running on the version you have, indefinitely.
Subscription costs compound
A typical Control4 install includes ongoing dealer fees in the order of US$50–$200 per month for cloud features, software updates, and remote support (Australian dealer pricing may differ). Over a fifteen-year ownership horizon that's US$9,000 to $36,000 of recurring cost on top of the install. Home Assistant has no subscription. The community Add-Ons are free. The hardware (controller, relays, gateways) is yours once installed.
Local processing is faster and more private
A Home Assistant automation typically responds in 50–200 milliseconds. The same automation routed through a vendor cloud is 500–2000 milliseconds. The difference is noticeable when you flip a switch and want the light on now. Privacy is the other side: your motion sensor data, your occupancy patterns, your daily schedule, all stay on your local network. They're not analysed by a third party for product development, sold to advertisers, or subject to subpoena.
Matter and Thread are the long-term play
Matter is the smart home interoperability standard backed by Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung, and most major device makers. Thread is the underlying mesh networking protocol. Together they mean a Matter-compliant device works with any Matter-compliant platform. Buying Matter devices today means your purchase isn't tied to whether Home Assistant, Apple, or Google "wins" the smart home wars. The infrastructure outlasts the platform fashion cycle.
The retrofit principle: physical fail-safe
Shelly Matter relays sit between the existing wall switch and the load. The switch is wired in series with the relay. Even with the controller offline, even with the relay's smart layer disabled, the physical switch still controls the circuit. The smart layer adds capability without removing the dumb-mode fallback. The "Iron" (the wired electrical) keeps working when the "Air" (the smart layer) doesn't.
For a deeper read on the platform comparison and why local-first matters, see our guides on Home Assistant vs Control4 vs Savant, Smart Home Without the Cloud, and Matter and Thread Explained.
Frequently asked
▸ What is Home Assistant, in one sentence?
▸ Do I need to rewire my house?
▸ Will it stop working if my internet drops?
▸ How does this compare to Control4 or Savant?
▸ Will I be locked into using Iron and Air for changes later?
▸ What does a typical install cost?
▸ Can I add to it myself later?
▸ What happens if Home Assistant the project stops being developed?
▸ Do you do Apple HomeKit instead, or in addition?
Book a System Audit
The audit is where every Home Assistant project starts. 2 to 3 hours on site, written report within five business days, fixed-price install quote alongside it. Most enquiries get a response within four business hours. If you've got questions before booking, the call is faster than email.