Featuring Smart Home Technology To Sell Home Remodeling Services

Remodelers need to embrace smart home automation to demonstrate cutting-edge capabilities and attract new clients

Many homeowners choose to remodel with style and convenience foremost in mind. Master suite room additions with a fireplace, garage or finished theater conversions, professional grade kitchen remodels, and European style walk-in shower and soaking tub bath suites are home improvements that have traditionally stood out in this regard. Smart home technology is rapidly joining the list of "must haves" when remodeling.

But as “smart home” enters the vocabulary of homeowners seeking a remodeler, many home improvement professionals are wondering if they should offer and market smart home technology as part of their services. I believe that quickly providing and promoting smart home features as part of your services can help differentiate your firm from your competitors and attract clients seeking high-end remodeling services. 

Smart Home Technology Continues to Gain Market Share

It seems that Amazon's marketing of Echo is ever present in our lives and homeowners are looking to ask Alexa for everything from adjusting the temperature of a home to reading the next chapter of their favorite Audible book to managing all the lights in your house. Smart home devices are being developed to manage lighting, irrigation systems, and buy groceries. Homeowners are also looking for ways to maximize efficiency and increase security. Transparency Market Research estimates that by 2020, the worldwide smart home market will be a $22 billion. As smart home devices become more prevalent, homeowners are looking for technology that accomplishes mundane tasks and improve their quality of life. Positioning your remodeling firm as an expert in integrating smart home technology now will help you attract clients who expect more and are willing to spend more to get what they want.

Coldwell Banker Real Estate conducted a poll of 4,000 U.S. consumers in late 2015 regarding the adoption of smart home technology and revealed that "Almost half (45 percent) of all Americans either own smart home technology or plan to invest in it in 2016." The survey also revealed the following.

• Americans with a household income of $50k to $75k and those with a household income of $75k to $100k are adopting smart home technology at nearly identical paces: 25 percent adoption for those in the $50k to $75k range and 26 percent adoption for those in the $75k to $100k cohort.

• Of homeowners who said they'd purchase or install smart home products, 65 percent would pay $1,500 or more, and 40 percent would pay $3,000 or more to make their home smart.

• Older generations are adopting certain kinds of smart home tech faster than younger ones. For instance, 40 percent of those over 65 who own smart home products currently have smart temperature products, compared to only 25 percent of Millennials (ages 18 to 34).

What is a Smart Home?

A smart home integrates multiple sub-system devices, like Nest thermostats, Lutron Caseta in-wall wireless smart lighting, August smart door locks, Rinnai Control R heating systems, Lutron Serena window shades and even your GE Profile appliances, and window shades that are all controlled by a master home controller. This home controller is the smart home system's brain, receiving input from all of the smart home devices, issuing commands and controlling everything.

These controllers have software that enables them to perform a variety of actions based on events. These events are either timed or triggered or both. Most smart home controllers have time clock built in that is connected to the internet allowing the system to conduct tasks at specific times every day, like increasing the temperature of a home at 5:00 a.m., or adjust settings based on sunrise/sunset times, like raising window shades just before sunrise. Triggered events are actions that the home controller performs based on an action. Dimming one light in a room may trigger all lights to dim or calling a phone number if a motion is detected.

Combining timed and triggered with conditional logic - if this, then that, unless this, a smart home system can accomplish a variety of tasks. An example of this might be If I turn on this light switch on between 4:00 a.m. and 7:00 am, then set the light output at 30%. At all other times establish the light output at 90%.

Remodelers Need To Get Ahead Of The Curve with Smart Home Automation

If you're having trouble deciding whether or not to offer smart home technology as part of your service offerings, I have one question that may encourage you to take the leap. If your home improvement company is going to install light switches, a thermostat or a door lock during a remodel, why not make them smart home compatible and market the advantages of using your smart home services on your website and blog? Smart homes are here and the market is growing. Soon those small inconveniences that you never really thought about will be solved by smart home devices. Or to put it another way, when is the last time you changed a television channel without a remote? It's going to be just like that for everyone very soon.

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About Michael Conway

I'm the owner and strategist at Means-of-Production. My firm builds Squarespace websites, Houzz profiles, and content marketing and advertising solutions for architects, interior designers, design-build contractors and landscape design firms. Our all-in-one marketing tactics attract the right clients with exceptional architectural photography and brand messaging that sets you apart from the competition. Contact me to get a free video review of your website and marketing outreach.