Smart home installation is an unregulated description. Anyone can use it. The gap between a good installation and an expensive one is mostly about process, and you can assess process before you sign anything.
Here are the questions we’d ask if we were buying.
1. Are you certified by the manufacturer whose system you’re selling?
Most serious platforms run certification programmes with tiers. Ask which tier, ask how many of their engineers hold it, and ask to see it. “We’ve done a few of these” is not certification.
2. Do you sub-contract the installation?
This is the single most revealing question. Sub-contracting isn’t automatically wrong, but you should know before, not discover it when unfamiliar people arrive. Ask specifically: will the person who surveyed and quoted be on site?
3. Is the quote fixed, in writing, for the whole scope?
Automation involves significant programming time that’s hard to estimate from outside. Day-rate arrangements transfer that entire risk to you. A fixed quote signals the installer has actually designed the system before pricing it.
4. Who is notifying the electrical work?
Fixed wiring work in a UK home must be carried out by a competent person and notified under Part P where applicable. Ask which scheme they’re registered with — NAPIT, NICEIC or similar — and confirm the certificate comes to you. This is a legal matter, not a preference.
5. What am I paying monthly, and for what?
Get every recurring cost listed: app access, remote access, cloud storage per camera, dealer support plans, platform fees. Then multiply by 120 for a ten-year view. It reorders quotes surprisingly often.
6. What happens when the internet goes down?
A well-designed system keeps working locally — lights, heating, door entry, all of it. If the answer is vague, or “you’d use the wall switches”, find out exactly what stops. A house that becomes unusable during a broadband outage is a design failure, not bad luck.
7. What documentation do I get at handover?
You want as-built wiring documentation, a circuit schedule, and full administrative credentials to your own system. Some installers retain admin access as a commercial lock-in. That’s a serious problem later, and it’s much easier to insist on beforehand.
8. Who can work on this if you stop trading?
Businesses close. On an open or widely-supported platform, another certified installer can pick it up if you hold the documentation. On a closed one where only the original dealer holds the keys, you may have no options at all. Ask directly.
9. What’s the warranty, and what does it actually cover?
Distinguish the installer’s own warranty on their labour from the manufacturer’s warranty on the hardware. Ask what happens in month 13. Ask what the response time is and whether it’s contractual or aspirational.
10. Can I speak to someone whose install is two years old?
Anyone can produce a delighted customer from last month. The interesting question is how a system feels after two years — whether it still gets used, whether anything has been switched back to manual, and whether the installer answered the phone when something needed adjusting.
What good looks like
A good installer will survey properly before quoting, tell you what not to buy, be specific about what’s difficult in your particular property, and put a fixed number in writing. They’ll be relaxed about all ten of these questions, because they’ve been asked them before.
An installer who becomes defensive about documentation, admin access or sub-contracting is telling you something useful.
For what it’s worth, our answers: Loxone Silver Partner with all four engineers Loxone-trained, never sub-contracted, fixed written quote within five working days of a free site visit, NAPIT registered and Part P notified, no subscription of any kind, and full documentation and admin access handed over as standard.
Jack Jones
Director, Westgate Property Solutions · Loxone Silver Partner