Most smart home gear falls into two buckets: things you can plug in and set up yourself, and things that connect to your home’s 240V wiring and legally need a licensed electrician. Smart plugs, cameras on a power point, video doorbells running on batteries, and speakers are all in the first bucket. Smart light switches, dimmers, hardwired doorbells, ceiling fans, garage door motors, EV chargers, sub-boards and anything that means opening a wall plate sit firmly in the second.
That line matters more than the brand you choose. If you get the electrical side right, you can swap the app or the hub later. If you get it wrong, you either have devices that never worked properly or wiring that isn’t safe.
Start with what you want the house to do
Before anyone quotes, write down the three or four things you actually want. Not the product names, the outcomes. For example:
- Lights off everywhere with one tap when we go to bed
- The hallway light comes on by itself at night
- See who’s at the front door from work
- Heating or cooling on before we get home
- Know if the garage door was left open
That list drives the wiring. “Smart home” as a phrase drives nothing, and it’s how people end up with a drawer of hubs.
The neutral wire question (the big one in older homes)
Most smart light switches need a neutral wire at the switch to power themselves when the light is off. Plenty of Melbourne homes, especially anything built before the 1990s and a lot of places after, only have an active and a switch wire running down to the switch plate. No neutral.
When there’s no neutral, the options are:
- Run a neutral to the switch. Straightforward if there’s accessible roof space above and the wall isn’t fully insulated or blocked by noggins. Harder in a double storey, a concrete slab townhouse, or a brick wall with no cavity access.
- Use a device that sits at the light fitting instead of the switch. A smart relay or module in the ceiling rose, where neutral is nearly always present, with the existing switch wired as an input. Keeps your original switch plates.
- Use switches designed to run without a neutral. They exist, but they can flicker or buzz with some LED globes and they limit your choices later.
An electrician should check this before quoting the job, not on the day. Ask them to take a switch plate off and look. It’s a five minute check that changes the price and the approach.
Wi-fi, Zigbee, Z-Wave, wired: what to care about
You don’t need to learn the protocols. You need to care about two practical things.
Does it still work if the internet drops out? Devices that run everything through a company’s server overseas go dead when your NBN does. Systems with a local hub, or switches that keep working as normal switches, don’t. In a house where the lights are smart, this is not a small detail.
Will it reach? Double brick, rendered walls with metal mesh, and long skinny renovated terraces all eat wi-fi. If you’re putting thirty devices on one router, expect trouble. Data cabling to a couple of access points, done at the same time as the electrical work, solves it permanently. Data and comms cabling is licensed work too, so it’s worth asking whether your electrician is registered for it.
What’s worth doing during a renovation or build
If walls are open, this is the cheapest this work will ever be. Even if you’re not buying smart gear yet:
- Neutrals to every switch plate. Costs almost nothing now, opens every option later.
- Data cable to the TV, the study, and one or two ceiling points for wi-fi access points.
- Conduit or a draw string from the meter box to the garage wall if there’s any chance of an EV.
- Deeper switch and power point boxes. Smart modules need room behind the plate.
- A slightly larger switchboard with spare ways.
These are the things people ring about two years later, when the plaster is up and the answer has become expensive.
What affects the price
We won’t quote a number here because the honest answer is that it swings enormously. What moves it:
- How many switch points, and whether they’re one gang, two gang or four
- Whether there’s a neutral, or whether one has to be run
- Roof and subfloor access. A single storey with a walkable roof space is a different job to a first floor bedroom under a low pitched tile roof
- Whether the switchboard needs work. Older boards with rewireable fuses and no safety switches often need an upgrade before anything else happens, and that’s a real cost people don’t expect
- Whether you supply the devices or the electrician does
- Setup and handover time. Getting forty devices named, grouped and into scenes takes hours, and it’s a legitimate part of the job
Ask for the quote to separate the electrical work from the setup so you can see both.
Questions to ask whoever quotes
- Are you licensed, and will I get a Certificate of Electrical Safety for the work?
- Have you checked whether my switches have neutrals?
- Will the lights still work as normal switches if the wi-fi or hub fails?
- Who do I call in twelve months when something stops responding?
- Is this system tied to one brand, or can I add other gear later?
That last one catches people out. Some ecosystems are happy to talk to anything. Others quietly lock you in, and the cost shows up when you want to add one more thing.
A sensible order to do it in
- Sort the switchboard and safety switches first. Everything else sits on top of it.
- Fix the network. Access points and cabling before devices.
- Do lighting, because it’s the thing you touch fifty times a day.
- Add door, camera, climate and garage after, one at a time, so you can tell what broke when something breaks.
Doing it in that order also means you can stop at any point and still have something that works.
FAQ
Can I install smart light switches myself?
No. In Victoria, any work on fixed 240V wiring, including replacing a light switch, must be done by a licensed electrician. Smart plugs, plug-in lamps and battery devices are fine to do yourself.
Will smart switches work with my existing LED downlights?
Usually, but dimming is where problems show up. Some LED globes and drivers hum, flicker or won’t dim to low levels on certain dimmers. If dimming matters to you, say so upfront so the dimmer is matched to your lights, or budget for changing a few globes.
Do I need a hub?
Not always. Some devices talk straight to your wi-fi. A hub becomes worth it once you have a lot of devices, or when you want everything to keep running locally without the internet. If you’re starting with a handful of switches, you can add one later.