Smart home costs: This is how much money you have to plan for renovations and new purchases

A smart home like this is a great thing. Whether you are at home or on the go, all important tasks in your home are carried out by smart systems. Thanks to smart thermostats, there is always the perfect temperature, smart door locks secure your front door and your smart lamps provide the perfect light fully automatically. However, many people are put off by the price that comes with a smart home.

Of course, you first have to buy all the supposedly expensive smart home devices. Depending on the house or apartment, there are additional costs for renovation and furnishing. But converting into a smart home doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive. If you can do without some functions, the costs are actually quite manageable. But what costs should you expect when planning a smart home?

How much does a smart home cost?

It is difficult to set a standard price for smart home setup. The costs are largely determined by your living conditions and your demands on the smart home. An overview of the factors that determine costs:

• Choice of smart home system and its connection type
• Installation (set it up yourself or have it set up)
• Quantity and type of smart home devices
• Number and size of rooms
• Energy supply for smart home devices

If you only have a small two-room apartment, you tend to pay less for your smart home equipment than someone with a four-room apartment. If a few smart sockets and a thermostat are enough for you, you will pay less than someone who wants to equip their house with an all-round smart home package.

Cost calculation is made even more difficult by the fact that there are dozens of smart home providers on the market with different systems and standards, all of which offer their own devices. Different smart home systems are inevitably not always compatible with one another. However, an approximate calculation of the costs is possible as long as you can roughly say what your smart home should offer.

Smart home for beginners

If you want to keep it cheap, you can make do with basic smart home equipment. This usually always consists of a central control unit (often a “hub” or “bridge”) including some compatible devices. This could be two to three thermostats or smart lamps, for example.

Many retailers offer you savings packages in which you can buy the control unit with a few other products. You can even find some of these packages tailored to your needs in the form of security, comfort or energy-saving packages. Prices for such basic systems start at around 150 euros if you want to equip one or two rooms. However, if there are more rooms, the price can be twice as high.

Smart home for advanced users

However, many technology lovers place significantly higher demands on their smart home than just being able to turn the lights on and off using a voice command. Maybe the house should also be equipped with several smart speakers to help you control it? And how about a smart surveillance camera, a smart smoke detector and a smart door lock to ensure sufficient security?

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Here you have to expect costs of several 500 to 1,000 euros for the devices alone, again depending on the number and size of the rooms to be equipped. If you also want a robot vacuum to keep the apartment clean and a robot mower to trim the lawn, then it is better to budget an amount of 1,000 to 2,500 euros.

In particularly large houses, such as luxury villas, the prices are significantly higher. If you own a large house and want to fully equip it with all the conveniences of smart home technology, it can ultimately amount to a low five-figure amount. But it should be said: This should at least affect us.

Put together smart home equipment individually

If you have very specific ideas about your future smart home, you may not find a package from providers that contains exactly the devices you need. You can of course also put together your smart home equipment individually and buy the devices individually. So that you can get a feel for how expensive the individual products are, we have listed them for you with the corresponding average prices.

Setting up a smart home: Additional costs

In many cases, modern smart home devices no longer require you to convert your home to use them. Smart thermostats, for example, can easily be screwed onto the heating system and surveillance cameras are simply screwed onto the wall and connected to an energy source.

Of course, you then have to set up the devices and possibly network them with each other. Here too, a lot of things are already done automatically. Otherwise, you can also use online tutorials and instructions, such as those you can find on Netzwelt. We’ll explain to you very simply how to set up your smart home.

This saves you the costs of having it professionally set up by an expert. You can avoid the unnecessary additional costs, especially in small and medium-sized apartments. Only in particularly large houses, where setting up can take many hours, can such an expert pay off in the end.

How much does a smart home cost per month?

The monthly costs for your smart home, once set up, are cheap, apart from new purchases that you want to make over time. As a rule, they only amount to the operating costs, i.e. the electricity and energy costs, of the devices. From time to time you may have to buy a new device if it no longer works properly after a certain period of time.

Can you save money with a smart home?

It is often argued that with a well-equipped smart home you can save a lot of energy and therefore also energy costs. The investment in a smart home system can definitely pay for itself after a certain period of time. But to make the project really worthwhile, you have to set up your smart home devices cleverly.

There are many examples of how you can save energy with smart home devices. A smart thermostat that automatically turns down the temperature when you are away or lamps that only shine as brightly as the situation requires are a good start.

But be careful: There are also smart home devices that can use additional energy, such as high-performance vacuum robots or surveillance cameras. However, they do not have the purpose of saving energy. They are primarily intended to make your household easier or offer security.

This is where the energy source for the smart home devices also comes into play. Few devices still run on batteries. Of course, you can’t expect any energy savings with these. However, most devices are connected to the mains or have a battery and are particularly energy efficient. You can always find important information about energy saving in the product descriptions of the smart home devices.

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On the next page we have put together a few tips for you that will help you save a little more here and there when buying your smart home equipment. Finally, we will also address the topic of “state funding”.