The car charges on sun and cheap power
It charges on spare solar or cheap prices, up to its limit, and pauses in a price spike. Ask the house for the car's charge, or have it warm the cabin before you leave.
Tesla, via TessiePowerPilot
Its screens
The whole house on one wall.
A 10-inch wall tablet runs the home screen. Two Sonoff NSPanel Pro wall panels sit at the doors: the front one for the garage, the car and the entry lights, the back one for the spa, sauna, ice bath, garden watering and outdoor lights. Both have a button to talk to the voice assistant.
Front door
Back door
Energy and money
It runs on sunshine and dodges price spikes.
Most of this is PowerPilot, which runs on the same Home Assistant box. The rest is Home Assistant on its own.
The aircon is kept in check
It sets back when power is dear and uses spare solar for comfort when someone's home. Open a zone on the wall and it starts; close the last one and it stops. Wireless sensors report the real room temperature.
Daikin ductedSonoff temperature sensorsSonoff motion sensorPowerPilot
The sauna stands down in a crisis
If a spike hits while the battery is flat, the sauna is switched off. It's never switched on for you. Its setpoint, session timer and light are on the back-door panel.
Sauna Wi-Fi kit, local controlPowerPilot
The spa heats on free sunshine
It heats on spare solar, coasts through the evening peak, and only tops up from the grid if the sun fell short. Jets, lights and a sanitise cycle are one tap each, and it keeps its own heating and running-cost stats.
SpaNET controllerPowerPilot
The ice bath chills on spare solar
It cools when the sun is paying, holds off on expensive grid power, and waits out spikes. A morning schedule has it cold for the early plunge, and the panel shows flow and compressor.
Wi-Fi chiller, local controlPowerPilot
Not yet
The dryer is next
Laundry isn't controlled yet. It's on the list.
Not yet
Spike defence, out loud
When the price spikes, the big loads switch off once, and the speakers say so at the start and again at the all-clear.
Amber pricesSonosPowerPilot
Battery and solar on the wall all day
Battery charge, solar, home use and the grid are live on the wall, with today's energy flow and the solar forecast. The retailer's SmartShift service runs the battery itself.
Tesla PowerwallSolar forecast
Every circuit shows its running cost
Sixteen circuits are metered in the switchboard. Each shows what it has cost today at the live price, so you can see which one is eating the bill.
Emporia Vue, 16 clampsAmber pricesFitted by a licensed electrician
A morning brief on your phone
At sunrise: battery level, today's price band, the solar forecast, and whether the garage and front door are shut.
Home Assistant phone app
Water and garden
Watering that checks the sky first.
Rain-aware garden watering
Two garden zones water each morning, the front and back for 10 minutes and the side for 3. Each run is skipped if the forecast says rain, or if the rain sensor was properly wet in the last day. A splash doesn't count.
Sonoff dual tap valveZigbee rain sensorWeather forecast
A running water bill for the garden
Each day shows the garden's minutes, litres and cost at the household's water price of $3.40 a kilolitre. The valve has its own flow meter, so you can see the water actually moving while it runs.
Sonoff dual tap valve
A valve can't be left running
Any garden valve open longer than 12 minutes is closed for you, with a message. If the valve drops off the network you're told within 30 minutes, and again before the morning run, so a missed watering never goes unnoticed. Water-now buttons sit on the wall panel.
Sonoff dual tap valve
Know which plants need water
A soil sensor in the pot sends a message when a plant has been dry for six hours.
Zigbee soil sensor
A leak alarm on every channel
A leak under the laundry sink sends a phone alert, a Telegram message and a high-priority push, and every speaker in the house says where it is.
Sonoff leak sensorSonos
Security and access
It locks up and keeps watch.
Goodnight, without a button
Once everyone's in bed after 10 pm, the front door locks and the last lights go off. A bedside double-click does it early.
Bed sensorsAugust smart lockSonoff USB switch
The garage door, from your phone
A relay works the opener and a door sensor knows if it's really open. Left open five minutes? Your phone hears about it.
Shelly relaySonoff door sensor
Away mode in one switch
Lights, non-essentials and the aircon go off, the door locks, and you get a summary. Forget to set it and your phone asks, with a one-tap button. Turn it off and the house welcomes you back.
Sonoff relaysTP-Link KasaDaikinAugust lock
A lived-in look while you're away
On an evening away, a random light comes on every half hour and they all go off at 10:45 pm.
Sonoff dimmerRotary dimmersSmart bulbs
It knows the sitter from a stranger
While you're away, the sitter's keypad code gets a friendly “sitter visit” message; a door opened with no known code gets a loud one. The door re-locks itself after 10 minutes.
August lock and keypadSonoff door sensor
It notices when gear goes quiet
If the lock, a door or leak sensor, a valve, the sauna or the garage controller stops reporting, you hear about it, and again when it's back.
Home Assistant
Lights, voice and music
Lights follow the sun. The house talks back.
An evening scene at dusk
Before sunset about nine lighting circuits come on, from the bedside lamps to the backyard. The festoon lights go out at 9:30 pm on work nights and 11 pm on weekends.
Sonoff relays and dimmersRotary dimmersSmart plugs
Good morning, lamps on
Fifteen minutes before sunrise the outside lights go off and the office desk lamps come on.
Sonoff USB switchesSmart plug
Wall switches that do more
A normal-looking rocker becomes a smart button, so the light it controls stays connected even when someone flicks the switch.
Sonoff 2-gang relayFitted by a licensed electrician
Bedside buttons
Click for the lamps, double-click for the room lights or to run Goodnight now.
Sonoff wireless button
Two AI voice assistants
Two wake words, two personalities, from a small speaker or the wall panel. They set the aircon, run scenes, answer questions about the house and reply in their own voices.
Home Assistant VoiceClaudeElevenLabs voices
Music in any room, by voice
“Play my liked songs” starts the playlist on that room's speakers.
SonosSpotifyMusic Assistant
A welcome home
Pull into the driveway and the house greets you with a custom welcome-home announcement.
Car and phone locationSonos
It looks after itself
It handles the hiccups.
Back on its feet after a restart
If a slow cloud service doesn't reconnect after a restart, Home Assistant reloads it by itself.
Home Assistant
Updates don't break the house
When an update would wipe a custom device setup, it's put back automatically and you get a message saying so.
Home Assistant
Real errors reach you; noise doesn't
Genuine errors go to Telegram, with chatty devices filtered out. Every minute it checks the router, wall tablet, speakers and battery gateway, so a flaky connection shows up in the data.
Home AssistantTelegram
It knows what needs new batteries
One screen lists every battery-powered sensor from lowest to highest, with the ones to replace soon at the top.
Home Assistant
KasaKeeper looks after the rest
Maintenance schedules, warranties and trade quotes for every system in the house, on the same box. See KasaKeeper.
KasaKeeper
The Sonoff parts in this home
Most of it costs about $19 a piece.
Sonoff’s Zigbee range runs locally on the Home Assistant box, with no cloud account. 28 of the home’s 41 Zigbee devices are Sonoff.
Part · in this homePriceFitting
2-gang relay ×6 · lights and outdoor power$29Behind the switch · licensed electrician
Dimmer ×3 · dimmable lights$49Behind the switch · licensed electrician
No-neutral relay ×3 · lamps, outside lights$24Behind the switch · licensed electrician
USB switch ×3 · desk and decorative lamps$19Plugs in
Temperature and humidity sensors ×4 · room temperatures for the aircon$19–$25Battery · stick it anywhere
Door sensors ×2 · front door, garage$19Battery
Motion sensor tells PowerPilot someone's home$19Battery
Wireless buttons ×2 · bedside routines$19Battery
Leak sensor under the laundry sink$25Battery
Dual tap valve two garden zones, with a flow meter$79Screws onto the tap
Prices from SmartHome’s Sonoff range, seen 21 Oct 2026. None of those listings states Australian approval (RCM), so the consult checks every part before it goes in. Anything in the walls or switchboard is fitted by a licensed electrician. Not Sonoff in this home: the garage relay (Shelly), the lock (August), the rotary dimmers, the bulbs and some plugs (TP-Link Kasa and Tuya), the rain and soil sensors, the sauna and ice bath controls, the spa (SpaNET), the aircon (Daikin), the battery and car (Tesla) and the circuit monitor (Emporia). Home Assistant runs them all together.
The software
Mostly free. A few services earn their keep.
What it doesCost
Home Assistant The system everything runs on, on a small box at home.Free
Home Assistant Cloud Secure access from anywhere, without opening up the router.US$6.50 a month
Tessie Brings the Tesla into the house.From US$6.99 a month per car
Claude The thinking behind both voice assistants.Pay per use
ElevenLabs The two assistants' voices.Free tier; paid from US$6 a month
Speech and wake words Run on the box itself, so your voice stays in the house.Free
Music Assistant Spotify on the Sonos speakers, by voice.Free, plus Spotify
Prices from each service’s own pricing page, seen 21 Oct 2026, in US dollars where that’s how they charge.
Start with PowerPilot. Add the rest when you like.
We can set up any of this with your install, or later at our support rate. The consult tells you what your house can do and what each part costs.