Expert Home Automation Installation & Design for Large Homes

The Home Automation Company Serving the UK Since 1998

A smart home brings lighting, heating, music, video, security and blinds together under one system, so instead of a house full of separate remotes, apps and switches, everything responds to a single command — a wall panel, an app, a voice, or a scene that runs itself at the right moment. As a home automation company, Custom Controls designs and installs these systems at the highest level the industry has to offer: we’re five-time Crestron Integration Award winners — a record unique in EMEA, judged by Crestron itself and never claimed by us — and we hold Crestron Dealer of Distinction status. Our home automation services cover the UK end to end, from initial design through to ongoing support.

We build primarily around Crestron, the most capable residential automation platform available anywhere, with Lutron handling lighting and shading on the majority of our significant projects. We’re equally fluent in Control4 and Savant, and every system — whichever platform it’s built on — is programmed from scratch for the property and the people living in it. Since 1998 we’ve delivered systems from single-room upgrades to whole-estate installations spanning multiple buildings, from offices in London and Cheshire, on projects across the UK, Europe, Dubai and the French Alps.

What a Home Automation System Does

Rather than managing lighting, blinds, climate, audio, video, security and access as separate systems, a smart home unifies all of it behind one interface — touchscreens, wall keypads, a mobile app, or voice control. Scenes handle the coordination: “Good Morning” might raise the blinds, start the coffee machine, warm the underfloor heating and bring the radio on at low volume, all from one button press or a single spoken phrase. Nothing about it feels like technology once it’s set up correctly; it just feels like the house doing what you’d want, before you’ve had to ask. Read our complete guide to modern home automation →

A home automation system is the layer that links every other system in the house. Lighting and motorised blinds and curtains are controlled by scene, with Lutron or Crestron dimming. Heating, cooling and ventilation are brought into room-by-room schedules, including underfloor heating and third-party air conditioning. Audio and video distribution gives every room independent access to every source. Security, CCTV, gates, door entry and intercoms appear on the same touchpanels as everything else, and where the property has them, pool and garden controls, EV chargers and energy equipment join the same system, as they did at the Beetham Tower penthouse and the Dubai estate.

Scenes, Schedules and Interfaces

Scenes are the part of home automation that a household notices. A scene recalls a pre-set state for every connected system in one action: the lights at the levels the lighting design set, blinds in position, music on, the right zones of heating. Scenes can be recalled from a keypad, touchpanel, app or voice, and they can also fire on triggers such as the time of day, the arming of the alarm or the owner’s phone approaching the property. Arming the alarm can switch off every light and AV zone, and disarming it can bring a chosen welcome scene back before the front door has closed. In alpine chalets, geofencing starts the arrival sequence when the owners are a set distance away, and an unoccupied mode maintains frost protection, monitors for faults and logs access events. In Dubai, geofenced arrival scenes pre-cool the villa before the family gets home.

We design the interface around the people who will use it. Wall-mounted touchpanels and keypads give fast control in every room, custom-engraved so each button says what it does. iPads and the Crestron app give the family full control from anywhere, including remote access when they are away, and in key rooms a handheld remote such as the Crestron MLX-3 gives unified control of every AV source and the lighting from one device. At Claridge’s, wireless touchpanels were designed so that hotel guests of any nationality could operate the system with no instruction, and at Baker Street the interface was so intuitive that the client turned down training.

New Build, Retrofit and Third-Party Integration

A new build or major renovation allows a fully wired system, with cable routes, equipment rooms and control points planned with the architect before any wall is closed. Retrofit projects use wireless technology instead: Crestron wireless dimmers and Lutron RadioRA 3 replace existing switches over the existing wiring, so no walls are opened and a lived-in home can stay lived in. Many systems installed by other companies can also be brought up to date by reprogramming and replacing interfaces, reusing the existing cabling rather than starting again.

Few homes are built from one manufacturer’s equipment, so integration is a large part of the work. Air conditioning from Daikin, Mitsubishi, Carrier and York can be controlled through KNX or BACnet, and bridges such as Cool Automation’s CoolMasterNet bring other manufacturers’ VRF and ducted systems into Crestron or Lutron. Alarm panels, IP CCTV, gate and door entry, intercoms and a Kaleidescape movie server all sit on the same system. Because every integration is written into one programme, a single scene can act across all of them, and a fault in any one of them is visible in one place.

Choosing the Platform and Planning for Scale

Crestron, Lutron, Savant and Control4 each offer genuinely different strengths, and we install all four rather than pushing clients toward a single house platform regardless of fit. Crestron tends to suit larger installations with complex AV and multi-zone lighting — its processing power and flexibility scale to whole-estate projects in a way few competitors match. Control4 and Savant often suit simpler systems built around app and voice control, where the priority is ease of use over raw capability. For clients building new homes or planning major renovations, we advise on platform choice from the design stage, before a single cable is specified. Read our full Crestron vs Lutron vs Control4 comparison →

Scale is where we do our best work. A single-room automation upgrade and a full country estate share the same underlying design principles, but a large multi-building property demands a fundamentally different architecture — and it’s the type of project we have the deepest experience delivering. Rather than routing every device back to one central equipment cabinet, we design distributed rack systems: typically a dedicated rack per building, a further rack per floor on larger structures, and one or two more racks serving the garden and grounds. Every rack runs its own processing and is networked back to the same control system, so however many buildings, floors or acres are involved, the property is controlled as one seamless whole from a single interface — and any fault is isolated to a single building or zone rather than taking down the estate.

From Design Stage to Handover

Smart home design begins early — during architectural planning or renovation design, not once the walls are already up. We work directly with architects and interior designers to integrate control points, wiring routes, equipment locations and user interfaces into the building design itself. Once construction begins, we coordinate installation with contractors, supervise rough-in and finish work, and commission the complete system before handover. The process is the same whether the project is a single-room lighting update or a full estate: design and specification, infrastructure and equipment deployment, then programming, testing and commissioning. Read our full guide to the installation process →

Where the system is built on Crestron or Lutron, the equipment racks are pre-built and pre-programmed at our UK workshop and tested against the design documentation before they reach site, so commissioning is connecting, refining scenes in the finished rooms and walking the household through the result.

Support and System Takeovers

Every installation includes training, full documentation and ongoing support, because a smart home is only as good as its reliability years after handover. We provide updates, troubleshooting and maintenance to keep every system performing the way it did on day one — and remote monitoring is standard, so most issues are identified and resolved before a client has even noticed anything was wrong. A significant part of our work is also taking over and repairing existing systems installed by other companies: we start with a full audit of the hardware, programming and network, document what is there before making any changes, fix faults at their cause, bring interfaces up to date and enrol the system in our monitoring service, so an inherited installation is supported to the same standard as one we built ourselves. Read more about our system takeover and repair service →

Our London office covers the capital and the Home Counties; Cheshire covers the North West and beyond. From either, we work across the UK and continental Europe as a matter of routine, with an established, active presence in Dubai and the French Alps — chalets, apartments and estates alike, wherever the project takes us.

Home Automation FAQs

• What does a smart home actually do?
  A smart home unifies lighting, blinds, climate, audio, video, security and access behind one interface, whether touchscreens, wall keypads, a mobile app or voice control. Scenes handle the coordination, so a Good Morning scene might raise the blinds, warm the underfloor heating and bring the radio on at low volume from one button press or a single spoken phrase.
• Which smart home platform should I choose?
  Crestron, Lutron, Savant and Control4 each have genuine strengths and we install all four. Crestron tends to suit larger installations with complex AV and multi-zone lighting, while Control4 and Savant often suit simpler systems built around app and voice control. We advise on platform choice from the design stage, before a cable is specified.
• Can a smart home system cover an estate with several buildings?
  Yes. For multi-building properties we design distributed rack systems, typically a dedicated rack per building, a further rack per floor on larger structures, and racks serving the garden and grounds. Every rack runs its own processing and is networked to the same control system, so the property is controlled as one seamless whole.
• Can you take over a smart home system installed by someone else?
  Yes. We bring the programming and documentation up to date and enrol the system in our monitoring service, so an inherited installation is supported to the same standard as one we built ourselves.
• When should smart home design start on a new build or renovation?
  At the design stage, before a single cable is specified. We advise on platform choice from the outset and take the project from initial design through installation to ongoing support.
• Is every system programmed from scratch?
  Yes. Whichever platform a system is built on, it is programmed for the property and the people living in it rather than from a generic template.
• Where do you install home automation?
  Across the UK from our London and Cheshire offices, and in continental Europe, Dubai and the French Alps, from single-room upgrades to whole-estate installations.

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