Hiring a Professional to Improve and Smarten Your Home
The smart home industry was growing fast as both startups and established technology companies tried to capture market share and build out the smart-home platform of the future. As that happens, smart home devices are increasingly available at lower cost, and third-party professional installation services are providing homeowners with a one-stop shop to get their whole house connected.
Below are some things to consider as you decide whether to call in a professional to help you get home automation up and running in your house.
Consider the Level of Your Handiwork Skills
If you are not confident that you have the wiring knowledge to figure out whether you have neutral wires in your light switch plates or to determine what needs to be done to connect your home’s smart lights, you may want to consult an electrician. It is certainly possible to install a smart-home solution without being an electrician, but you will need intermediate electrician skills and IT knowledge to ensure everything is working properly.
Consider What You Want to Do in Your Home
Have you decided that your home is in need of being made smarter? Before contacting a professional, try to identify which aspects of your home you’d like to automate using smart-home tech. You might want to focus on adding security, or you may want to make your home more energy efficient. Or perhaps making it easier to stream your favourite TV shows is what you’re after.
Before contacting a professional, try stopping by some retail stores that sell smart-home products.
Consider Getting Multiple Bids
When you’re planning your smart home, it can be tempting to hire a single contractor to design your entire system. However, you want to make sure that you shop around for at least two or three bids from professionals that can help you integrate all of the hardware and software into your home. The home-automation trade group CEDIA can help you find contractors that can meet your needs and ensure that they have proper insurance and certification. When talking with a potential installer, discuss their past work to see if they have experience doing the same sort of project before. You want someone who has plenty of experience working in a home like yours, especially if your house is older. Let someone else’s walls be a training ground for new tech!
The real reason to get multiple bids is that you want to find someone that you click with. “Find a company or person who really understands what they’re talking about and who listens to what your needs are,” Dave Pedigo, vice-president of emerging technologies at CEDIA, says. “Hire a person who understands you, aligns well with what technology you want to use, and understands the amount of support you need going forward.” No matter what devices you use in your smart home, it won’t succeed if its setup doesn’t make sense for how you live.
Consider the Factors That Affect the Price
Smart-home installations can range from simple to complicated. In general, the more you want, the more you pay. A smart-home system’s components include lighting, locks, entertainment, and security systems. The scope of a smart-home installation covers questions like how many rooms to install in, how many systems are involved, and how interconnected they are. To complicate things further, some people hire a professional company to install their smart home; others buy the system components themselves and hire someone to install them. Either way, a good installation requires knowledge and experience.
Conclusion
We’ve talked about the various things to consider when you’re planning to bring home automation into your house. You’ve learned about the different ways to get started on building your smart home, and you’ve learned about the range of services that are available to help you do it. Whether you decide to do it yourself or hire a professional, there’s still a lot of work to do. But it’s going to give you a lot of control over your home, which is pretty neat overall.
If you are looking for a company that provides smart home installation services in Lethbridge, look no further than our expertise here at D.A. Electric Ltd. We are proud to serve and provide an extremely high level of electrical services and the best quality products and materials available to our valued customers. Call us today and let us install all the smart amenities that you will need at home.
