I’m in the process of renovating my home and have the opportunity to build in new smart home functionality. I know possibilities are endless when it comes to building a smart home but I would like to automate and control 3 functions only:

- lighting
- home security alarm
- blinds for windows

The reason for these 3 is so that I can set up automations like turning off all lights, closing all blinds and activating the home alarm in one go, say when I leave the house, or begin closing bedroom blinds at sunset for example, or turn on downstairs alarm and turn off downstairs lights at bed time.

For this, I chose HomeKit to be the operating hub of choice mainly because of the interface and because everyone in the house has an iPhone and Apple Watch.

I’d like to get advice on which brands to use to make this happen. Any feedback on these products would be greatly appreciated.

Here’s what I’ve found so far:

Lighting: Lightwave RF switches
Blinds: Soma Tilt
Alarm: Abode Alarm

I’ve decided on Lightwave because I wanted traditional wired switches as opposed to wireless ones. For blinds, Soma is the best solution I could find for HomeKit where blinds can be automatically closed. Only downside of this is that I would need a unit for each blind to mechanically rotate/tilt the shutters.

Finally with Abode, it’s HomeKit compatible but I really don’t like the idea of all the sensors being wireless. For a home security system I would very much like something hard wired but haven’t come across anything decent.

I’ve heard a lot about Homebridge but don’t know how it works.

Any thoughts on the above?