Quick answer: A foundation smart home in Australia in 2026 starts at around $5,000 — a Home Assistant server, network upgrade, and the first dozen sensors and relays. A full residential build for a three or four-bedroom Central Coast home lands around $15,000, covering security cameras, energy monitoring, climate control, and dashboards on every level. A premium estate build with sub-panel monitoring, multi-zone climate, pool integration, and acreage-grade networking sits between $30,000 and $50,000, with $40,000 being the typical middle.
Three numbers cover most of what we install: five thousand, fifteen thousand, and forty thousand. The differences are not gloss — they are the number of circuits we monitor, the size of the Zigbee mesh, the number of Wi-Fi access points, and how many electrician days the build needs.
What We Charge and Why: The Three Tiers
Every quote is sized to the property, but most of our work clusters around three price points. The breakdown below is the bill of materials we would typically build at each tier — real product names, real labour days, rounded dollar figures rather than line-item invoices.
Apartment, small home, or a starter setup in a larger house. You get a proper local server, a real network, and the first dozen automation points — enough to feel the system every day. Typical kit:
- Home Assistant Green server ($230) with a 256 GB SSD and a Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus ($55)
- Ubiquiti UniFi Express router and one U6 Lite access point ($420 combined)
- Shelly Pro 1PM relays on six key circuits (lights, hot water, pool pump if present) — around $80 each, $480 total
- Eight Aqara FP2 presence and motion sensors across hallways and living areas ($110 each, around $880)
- Four Aqara T1 door and window sensors ($35 each, $140)
- Two Reolink RLC-820A 4K cameras for entry coverage ($210 each, $420)
- Labour: two electrician days plus one and a half installer days for configuration, dashboard build, and walk-through training (~$2,000)
That is the entry point. It is not a starter pack you outgrow — every component above is the same gear we put in $40k builds. You are just running fewer of them. For more on what these sensors and relays do on the wall, see our home automation service page.
Standard three to four-bedroom Central Coast house. Every room is covered, security is genuine rather than ornamental, and energy monitoring is wired at the switchboard. Typical kit:
- Home Assistant Yellow with Compute Module 4 and a PoE hat ($430), 1 TB NVMe SSD ($110), and a Sonoff Zigbee dongle as a secondary coordinator
- Ubiquiti UniFi network: Dream Router 7, three U6 Plus access points, an 8-port PoE switch (~$1,800 total)
- Shelly Pro 3EM at the switchboard for whole-of-house energy monitoring ($320) — feeds straight into the Home Assistant energy dashboard
- Shelly Pro 4PM and Pro 1PM relays across twelve to sixteen circuits (~$1,400)
- Twenty to twenty-five Aqara devices: FP2 presence sensors in every living zone, T1 contact sensors on every external door and window, P2 climate sensors per bedroom (~$2,300)
- Four Reolink or Hikvision PoE cameras with a local NVR ($1,400)
- Sonoff TRVRZB radiator valves or a Daikin Cloud Control hardwired into the existing split system ($600–$900)
- Custom Home Assistant dashboards built to your floor plan, tablet-mounted in the kitchen and entry ($350 for the Aqara M2 tablet plus configuration)
- Labour: four to five electrician days plus three to four installer days across a fortnight (~$4,200)
This tier is where most of our Central Coast work sits — Terrigal, Avoca, Wamberal, Woy Woy. The dashboards and energy view are documented on our dashboards page, and the switchboard work is covered in detail on our energy monitoring service page.
Five or six-bedroom homes, acreage builds, properties with pool, granny flat, or shed. Multi-phase power, multi-zone climate, sub-panel monitoring, and a network that has to cover an outdoor area. Typical kit:
- Home Assistant Yellow plus a secondary mini PC for cameras and AI workloads (Beelink EQ12 or similar, ~$650)
- Frigate NVR with a Google Coral USB AI accelerator for person, vehicle, and animal detection across all cameras ($120)
- Ubiquiti UniFi: Dream Machine Pro, two 24-port PoE switches, six to eight U6 Pro or U7 Pro access points, two outdoor U7 Mesh Pro units for the yard or driveway (~$4,500)
- Shelly Pro 3EM on the main switchboard plus one or two more on sub-panels (granny flat, shed, pool) — usually $900–$1,200 in EM hardware alone
- Twenty to thirty Shelly Pro relays distributed across lighting, irrigation, garage doors, and pool equipment (~$2,800)
- Forty-plus Zigbee devices including Aqara FP2 in every room, leak sensors under every wet area, P2 climate sensors per zone, and Aqara U200 smart locks on external doors (~$5,000)
- Eight to twelve Hikvision or Reolink 4K PoE cameras with a dedicated 4-bay NVR and 8 TB of storage (~$3,500)
- Multi-zone climate: ducted system with MHIAC interface or per-zone Daikin BRP integration, plus Sonoff TRVs on hydronic radiators if present (~$1,500)
- Pool and spa controls via Shelly Pro 4PM driving pump, chlorinator, and heater, with a Pentair or Zodiac integration if the gear supports it ($900)
- Labour: ten to fifteen electrician days plus seven to ten installer days, spread across three to four weeks (~$11,000)
Killcare, Pearl Beach, Avoca, MacMasters — most of our $40k builds are in those postcodes. The security side of this tier is described on our security cameras page, and the climate side on our climate control page.
Where the labour number comes from. We charge an installer day at $700–$800 and a licensed electrician day at $1,100–$1,300 inclusive of GST. There is no per-device markup — we pass on the Aqara, Shelly, and Ubiquiti retail price you can verify at any Australian distributor (Smart Home Sounds, AliExpress AU, Wired Smart, JD Smart). What we charge for is the design, the install, and the configuration. If a quote looks lower than ours, ask the installer where their hardware margin is hidden.
What Changes With Property Size
The biggest cost driver between the tiers is not the brand of gear — it is the physical layout of the property. Three numbers move when the house gets bigger: Zigbee mesh density, Wi-Fi access points, and switchboard complexity.
Apartment or Small Home
An 80 m² apartment is straightforward. A single Wi-Fi access point covers it. The Zigbee mesh from six to eight devices is dense enough that any new sensor will find a route. We can do an apartment foundation install in a single day on site.
Three or Four-Bedroom Central Coast Standard
A 180–220 m² brick or weatherboard house — the typical Terrigal, Wamberal, or Woy Woy build — needs two or three access points to keep cameras and tablets stable. The Zigbee mesh wants at least one mains-powered repeater per floor and one in the garage to keep motion-triggered automations under 200 ms. The switchboard usually carries sixteen to twenty-four circuits, so more time goes into mapping breakers before the clamps go on. See our Terrigal smart home page for the typical layout in that area.
Six-Bedroom Killcare or Avoca Estate
A 400 m² house on a 1,500 m² block changes the maths. We run multiple sub-panels — one for the main residence, one for the pool, one for the shed or granny flat — each with its own Shelly Pro 3EM if you want true visibility of where the kilowatts go. Wi-Fi needs six or more access points because hardwood and double-brick eat 5 GHz signal, and we trench Cat6 to one or two outdoor APs to cover the pool and driveway. Run distances matter: a Zigbee device more than fifteen metres from any repeater is unreliable, so the mesh becomes a deliberate floor-plan exercise. Our Killcare smart home page walks through a typical estate-scale build.
What We Don't Charge For
There are four things you do not pay extra for, regardless of tier. We mention them because every Crestron, Control4, and Telstra Smart Home quote we have audited charges for at least three of them.
- Design consultation. The first site visit, the room-by-room walk-through, and the written quote with the bill of materials above are free. We book it through the free site assessment form. You get to read the quote, sit on it for a week, and walk away with no obligation.
- Per-device markup. Hardware passes through at the price you can find at a local AU distributor. If Aqara FP2 sensors drop $20 in price between quote and install, the saving is yours.
- Monitoring subscription. We do not lock you into a $30 a month cloud sub. Home Assistant runs on the box in your cupboard. The only optional sub is Nabu Casa at about $97 a year if you want their remote-access service, and most clients set up a Tailscale or WireGuard tunnel instead and skip it.
- Truck roll for warranty. If a Shelly relay fails inside twelve months, we drive to your house, swap it, and re-flash it at no charge. The hardware warranty is with the manufacturer; the labour is on us.
Cheaper Alternatives — and Where They Actually Fail
Not every home needs us. Four cheaper paths come up in nearly every consultation we run, and three of them are genuinely fine for some households. Here is honest commentary on each.
The DIY Raspberry Pi 5 Home Assistant Build
Total spend: $600–$1,200. You buy a Pi 5 8 GB ($150), a Sonoff Zigbee dongle ($55), an NVMe hat and SSD ($120), and add Aqara sensors and Shelly relays as you go. It is fine — Home Assistant runs on a Pi 5 happily for a single-floor home. Where it fails: the first time an SD card or NVMe corrupts after a power cut, the first time a YAML edit breaks the dashboard the night before guests arrive, or the first time your partner needs to add an automation while you are at work. Time-to-fix on DIY is measured in evenings. Time-to-fix on a Control Freaks install is a phone call.
The Bunnings Smart Light Stack
Brilliant or Arlec Wi-Fi globes, Mirabella sensors, the Smart Life app. Total spend: under $400. It works for what it is: app-controlled lights and a couple of motion routines. Where it fails: every globe talks to the Tuya cloud independently. If NBN drops at 11pm, every bulb stops responding to the app (though the wall switch still works). There is no presence sensing, no real automation logic, no integration with energy or security, and you cannot move the system to a new house without re-pairing every globe.
The Apple HomeKit-Only Path
Apple TV 4K as the hub, HomeKit-certified gear from Eve, Aqara, and Hue. Total spend: $2,000–$5,000. Where it works: if your whole household is on iPhones and you only need lights, locks, blinds, and basic climate, HomeKit is a clean experience. Where it fails: the moment you want energy graphs, a custom dashboard, a presence sensor that knows which room someone is in, or a camera with on-device person detection, HomeKit runs out. We have done several HomeKit-to-Home-Assistant conversions in Pearl Beach in the past year — see our Pearl Beach smart home page for the typical conversion path.
The Crestron or Control4 Dealer Quote
Total spend: $40,000–$120,000 for a comparable residential build. Both systems are professional-grade. Where they fail: proprietary hardware that costs ten times what it should, dealer lock-in (only certified installers can touch the config), and per-room remotes that cost more than a Home Assistant Yellow. A Crestron dimmer module is $400 — the equivalent Shelly Pro 1PM is $80. If you need to add a sensor in three years, you call the dealer and pay for a site visit. With Home Assistant, you order a $35 Aqara, stick it to the wall, and pair it in two minutes. Crestron makes sense for $5M penthouses where the architect insists. For a $1.5M Killcare estate, we have not seen the four-times premium pay back.
What ROI Actually Looks Like
The pitch on a smart home is usually "convenience". The real return is measurable in dollars and in risk reduction, and we now have enough installed-base data to show what it looks like a year in.
The Power Bill Drop
Every home we install Shelly Pro 3EM in gets a baseline reading at handover and another at 90 days. Across forty-plus residential installs from 2024 to 2026, the average residential electricity bill drop is 12–22% in the first year. The biggest savings come from three places: shifting EV charging, dishwashers, and washing machines off peak (NSW peak is 2–8pm at 52–58 c/kWh, off-peak is 14–16 c/kWh), automating the pool pump to run during solar generation, and cutting overnight standby loads. A four-bedroom Central Coast house on a $3,500 a year bill saves $420–$770 in year one. The energy monitoring deep-dive article covers the data side in more detail.
Insurance Discount Eligibility
Several Australian insurers now offer 5–10% home and contents discounts for properties with monitored security cameras, smoke detection integration, and water leak sensors. Allianz, Budget Direct, and NRMA all list these in their underwriting guides as of 2025–26. On a $2,200 a year policy that is $110–$220 a year back. Combined with the power bill drop, the $15k full residential tier typically returns 4–7% of its cost annually.
Ageing in Place
For older homeowners or households with an elderly parent in a granny flat, the value pivots from dollars to risk. A presence sensor in the bathroom that triggers a notification if no movement is detected for ninety minutes during waking hours; a fall-pattern check that uses Aqara FP2 millimetre-wave data to detect low-height occupancy; smart locks that family members can unlock remotely if someone needs help. These features cost a few hundred dollars to add and replace a $50 a month medical alert subscription. We have built three of these for Central Coast clients in the past eighteen months.
None of these returns require you to run the system actively. The automations do the work — your job is to let the house run on its own and check the dashboard occasionally. We tune the rules at install and review them in a free check-in at the 90-day mark.
How to Decide Which Tier You Actually Need
The honest decision tree is short. If you rent or own a small apartment, you can usually self-install at the DIY level, or hire us at the foundation tier and get something that survives a move. If you own a typical Central Coast house and want energy monitoring, security, and climate control that integrate, the $15k full residential tier is built for you. If you own a $1.5M-plus estate with a pool, a granny flat, or acreage networking needs, the premium tier exists because the smaller tiers will not stretch that far without compromising on coverage.
What we tell every prospective client: start at the tier that covers what hurts most this year. Add to it later. Every system we build is sized to grow without re-architecting. The fastest way to find out which tier fits is to book a free site assessment — we walk the property, write a quote against your actual layout and existing gear, and email it across with no obligation.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does a smart home installation take?
A foundation tier install (around $5k) is one to two days on site. A full residential build at the $15k mark is usually four to six days spread across a fortnight, because we space switchboard work, network gear, and Zigbee device pairing rather than cramming it. A $40k premium estate runs two to four weeks with multiple site visits, electrician days, and a commissioning period where we watch automations behave under real household use before signing off.
Are there ongoing fees or subscriptions?
No. Every system we build runs on Home Assistant on hardware you own. There is no monthly fee, no cloud lock-in, and no monitoring subscription. The only ongoing costs are electricity for the server (under $15 a year) and an optional Nabu Casa cloud sub at around $97 a year if you want remote access without setting up your own VPN. Most clients skip it.
Can I add more devices later?
Yes, and most clients do. The point of a Home Assistant install is that it is open. You can add Zigbee sensors, Shelly relays, a new camera, a pool controller, or an EV charger years later and they will appear on the same dashboard. We size the server, Zigbee coordinator, and network so there is headroom for three to five years of additions without re-architecting.
What happens if I sell the house and move?
The hardware comes with you. Battery-powered Aqara sensors unscrew in seconds. The Home Assistant Green or Yellow server is a small box that lives in a cupboard. Shelly relays sit in switch backboxes and can be removed by an electrician in an afternoon if the next owner does not want them, or left in place as resale value. Wi-Fi access points and cameras are reusable in the new property. The configuration file ports across, so your automations rebuild themselves once the new floor plan is mapped.
What is Home Assistant?
Home Assistant is the open-source platform we build every system on. It runs locally on a small server in your house and talks to every brand of smart device through a single dashboard. Unlike Google Home, Apple HomeKit, or Telstra Smart Home, it is not owned by a company that can change terms, raise fees, or shut down a service. It has 3,000+ integrations and an active developer community, and the core software is free.
Do you do commercial installs as well?
Yes. We have built systems for short-stay rentals, a cafe, and a small warehouse on the Central Coast. Commercial work usually focuses on energy monitoring, access control, after-hours alarming, and remote climate management. Pricing follows the same tier logic but scales with the number of zones, doors, and circuits rather than bedrooms.
What about my existing smart devices?
Most of them slot in. Philips Hue bulbs, existing Sonoff or Shelly relays, Google Nest thermostats, Reolink and Hikvision cameras, Sungrow and Fronius inverters, and most Aqara and Tuya Zigbee devices all integrate with Home Assistant. The exceptions are devices that are cloud-only with no local API, such as some older Telstra Smart Home kit and certain Ring cameras. We audit your existing gear during the free site visit and tell you exactly what stays and what gets retired.
Does the smart home rely on NBN or internet?
No. Every automation we write runs locally on the Home Assistant server. Lights, climate, alarm logic, cameras, and dashboards keep working through an NBN outage. Internet is only required for remote access from outside the house, voice assistants like Alexa or Google, and software updates. We design every system so that an NBN drop does not break the house.
Want a real quote against your actual house?
We walk the property, audit your existing gear, and email a tier-by-tier breakdown the same week. No obligation, no follow-up calls, no sales pressure. Central Coast, Sydney, Newcastle, and Hunter Valley.
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