A smart home or business that was designed, not accumulated
For existing homes and small businesses in the Portland area, particularly older buildings, where the smart devices have arrived one at a time and never became a system.
What usually goes wrong
Almost nobody sets out to build a bad smart home. It accumulates. A video doorbell, then some bulbs, then a thermostat, then a lock, each from whichever brand was on offer that month and each with its own app and its own idea of how a house works.
What you end up with is a drawer of hubs, fifteen apps on a phone, automations only one person in the house understands, and a network quietly struggling under devices that were never planned for. Then a vendor discontinues a product line and a room stops working.
How I do it
The system gets designed before anything is chosen. What should happen in this building, which of that needs a device, and what has to be true of the network underneath before any of it is reliable. Older Portland buildings make that concrete: plaster, brick, odd additions and no useful wiring all decide what will actually carry a signal.
Device selection is deliberately vendor-neutral and biased towards things that will keep working, including if the manufacturer loses interest. Local control where it matters, so the lights do not depend on somebody else's cloud staying up.
Then I install it, configure it, and hand it off with documentation written for whoever will actually run it, not for the next installer. After that I stay on for maintenance and support, because a system nobody looks after slowly stops being one.
- A system design across lighting, climate, sensing, energy, and access
- Device selection that avoids vendor lock-in and dead product lines
- Network and protocol architecture that will carry the load
- Automation logic and configuration, documented so it can be changed later
- Installation of cameras, doorbells, locks and smart devices, and a hand-off guide written for whoever runs it
- Maintenance and support after the hand-off
Evidence for this specifically
Toggled iQ
Commercial building experience, pointed at your home or business.
Before this practice I ran product for a smart building platform used across commercial portfolios in more than thirty states. The problems are the same as a home, only less forgiving: devices from vendors that disagree, networks that were never planned, and automations somebody has to trust at two in the morning.
Downtown office building
An after-hours problem, fixed fast and on budget.
The main door was not reliably locked at night and people were getting onto the property after hours. Now the door locks itself every night, the grounds are lit and on camera until dawn, and the owners run it from their phones with a guide written for them.
My own house
A whole-home system, designed and then lived in.
A historic house in Oregon City, which is the hard version of this problem. Everything in it was chosen, wired into a plan, and then tested by actually living with it. I will not specify something for you that I would not run at home.
Questions people ask about this
- Do you install it?
- Yes. I design it, install the cameras, doorbells, locks and smart devices, configure everything, and hand it off with a guide you can follow. Anything that needs a licensed electrician, such as new circuits, goes to one, and I work alongside them.
- Do I have to replace everything I already own?
- Usually not. Part of the job is working out what you have that is worth keeping, what is quietly causing the problems, and what genuinely needs replacing. Throwing out working equipment to make a design tidy is a waste of your money.
- What happens when a manufacturer discontinues something?
- It is when, not if, and it is the main reason to design before buying. Choosing devices that speak open standards and can be controlled locally means one vendor giving up costs you that device rather than that room. It is also why the configuration gets documented instead of living in my head.
- How far outside Portland do you go?
- The Portland metro area and the nearer parts of the Willamette Valley, since this work happens on site. Website, store and AI work is remote and location does not matter for it at all.
Tell me what you are trying to build
A few sentences is enough. If this is not the right fit I will say so and point you somewhere better.