JE C - It obviously varies greatly depending on the scope of products you would like to control. Typically in a new build scenario, budgeting 5-10% of your build cost will give you a professionally designed and installed system including light control, security and access control, CCTV, Audio & Video solutions, networking and wi-fi solution. This would then be controlled by dedicated touchscreens and switches along with your existing smart phones and tablets, all from within one app.

And in the storms last week, we had a 24 hour blackout!! I'm with wuff - just how simple is simple. I think there is quite a bit of difference between labour saving devices and technology now. Labour saving devices became more and more essential as our lives got busier, women were freed from the drudgery of housework and given encouragement and the freedom to grow, seek out careers and a life outside the home. In many ways, I feel technology is putting us back in our homes and not encouraging us to explore the outside world. We are letting too much technology take over our lives and we are not interacting with people like we did in the old days. The other disadvantage with technology is its continual need to be updated and upgraded which can not only be expensive but also requires constant learning. Take TVs for example - in the olden days you bought a set plugged it in and that was it, now they have to be specially installed and set up and for the average person to know how to do this and understand it is not easy. Older people are being disadvantaged by all this technology too, they were not raised with it like the young ones today so it is constant learning, even learning a whole new language, and quite frankly there comes a time in life when head space just reaches saturation point.

Such a great home theatre room! Are they smart lights?

Now don't laugh, I STILL haven't decided which video door bell to get. I just read on a Ring 2 video door bell review that..... "you can't run the Ring Video Doorbell 2 on a regular ADSL or cable internet connection in Australia — neither has the upload bandwidth available. I use 4G at home and that's more than fast enough for a high quality feed, and anyone lucky enough to be on the NBN — ideally at least a 10Mbps upload plan rather than the base 25/5Mbps. This is a big caveat for the Video Doorbell 2, like it is for just about any smart home product you can buy in Australia — cameras like Nest's Indoor Cam, at the very least. If you don't have good internet speeds at home, you probably shouldn't even bother trying. And then you'll need good Wi-Fi". So, what to make of that? I just did a wi-fi speed test and my ADSL is only 0.87Mbps! Any comments from anyone using plain old ADSL at these low speeds?