What do KNX smart home owners really want?
You might have seen our Smart Home Cost Calculator that we launched recently, where people get to plan their future KNX smart home and get a rough idea of what the price would be. Via the KNX calculator, you set the size of the home, number of rooms and pick through different products and features you would like integrated (e.g. pick button type, add alarm, add intercom, integrate voice control, ...).
Since with KNX system you can substantially decrease your maintenance costs in terms of energy consumption and smart technology will increase your productivity, it’s a no brainer when building a new home. Picking KNX as your building technology will pay off in the long run and living in an intelligent building can save you time on repetitive tasks as well.
The final price estimate includes:
- The cost of planning
- Equipment (including the electrical cabinet)
- KNX programming
- Electrician consulting for the KNX wiring and installation.
Here are the results we’ve collected so far that consist of a couple thousand people that have finished the calculator so far. These results will give you a glimpse into the mind of an average future KNX smart home owner, what they’re looking for and what are the current trends in KNX home planning.
Want to know how much your new KNX smart home will cost?
- HOME TYPE: Most future KNX home owners (almost 90%) are looking to smarten up their house, not an apartment. This isn’t surprising since most apartments are rented and don’t allow for bigger adaptations, let alone drilling the walls and exchanging the wiring for KNX cables to add building automation and smart devices.
- PROJECT TYPE: More than half (65%) are building a new home, a third of them renovating an existing home. Again, not shocking, since even though KNX is versatile and can be retrofitted, it still requires breaking several walls to exchange the wiring.
- SQUARE METERS: We have noticed that most homes that were part of the calculator ranged between 100 and 200 square meters.
- ALARM & HAZARD PREVENTION: Interesting that hazard prevention is 20% more sought-after than alarm, even though almost every home we’ve worked with already had alarm set up, but not smoke or water leakage detectors. It looks like people are more afraid of damage from fires/floods/storms and energy management, than being alerted when someone breaks in, or they have that already covered in another way.
- VOICE CONTROL: As expected, voice control is on the rise and it’s currently gaining momentum with more than half of people (63%) wanting it in their KNX installation. The great marketing coming from Amazon, Apple and Google is boosting the sales of the smart speakers and popularising the casual use of voice control already.
- MOBILE APP: Apple ecosystem is slightly more popular than Android but a lot of people have mixed users in their family and want both. Apple users are a big part of our existing users and the 1Home Bridge (Apple and KNX certified) device is a great choice for them to extend their smart home with Apple HomeKit.
BTW: It’s currently discounted in our Christmas shop.
- INTERCOM: A smart intercom looks like a basic equipment for most homes as 80% of the people chose to have it in their home. People we’ve already talked with have pointed out the importance of interconnectedness of all devices, from lights, blinds to intercom, which KNX is a perfect match for.
- DISPLAYS & MUSIC: Displays are a must-have in at least one room it seems, whereas music isn’t as popular, but for people that do want it, want it in several rooms (3 or more). Smart displays mounted on walls are a great add-on to every home since it allows for easy management of heating/cooling, device groups control or checking up on any devices.
Music services are usually more popular, but I guess people don’t think about them yet when building a KNX home or it isn’t as important to be connected to other KNX devices.
- ESTIMATED COST: Most homes fell into the category of 15-20k for the cost of planning, equipment, advising and KNX programming. According to the people we’ve interviewed that recently built a KNX home, this estimation was much less than what they paid for their installation. This is due to our highly optimised process where electrical wiring is done at the same time as KNX wiring and everything is pre-programmed by our professionals.
Feel free to calculate the cost of your future smart home or check how much you’ve overpaid for your KNX home 😁