Home Automation in Adelaide
East Arc Group designs, programs and commissions KASTA home automation across Adelaide. George Pappas and Arie Minenko write the scenes, name them, and set them with you standing in the room.
East Arc Group Pty Ltd · ABN 20 694 108 328
Licensed Electrical Contractor · Lic. No. BLD 356143
Talk to us about control
Tell us about the house and what you want it to do. Automation decided during a renovation can do far more than automation added afterwards.
The short version.
- KASTA mesh control specified alongside the lighting, not after it.
- Every fitting's dimming method checked against its control device before anything is ordered.
- Plate positions and ganging set out to suit how each room is actually used.
- Scene design, programming and naming, done with you rather than guessed at.
- Commissioning, labelling, and a handover you can change yourself afterwards.
At a Norwood residence we designed the automation, programmed it, and commissioned it. The scenes on that wall are ours.
A scene is a sentence on a wall.
A scene is one press that sets a whole room. The kitchen at dinner. The living room at night. The whole house off at the front door as you leave. Four switches become one button, and the button says what it does.
Getting that right is design work and it is the part that cannot be done from an office. The number of scenes, what each one sets, how bright, which circuits it leaves alone, and above all what it is called. A plate that reads DINNER and NIGHT and AWAY is a house somebody can use without being taught. A plate that reads SCENE 1 to SCENE 4 is a house that gets a lecture from its owner every time a guest arrives.
So we set the scenes at commissioning, standing in the room, with the lights on, with you there, adjusting levels until they are right rather than accepting whatever came out of the software. Then we label them. At a Norwood residence we designed the automation, programmed it and commissioned it on that basis, and the scenes on the wall there are the ones we wrote.
The buttons on the wall say what they do. That is the whole design problem, and it is solved standing in the room, not at a desk.
The detail.
The most expensive mistake in home automation
It is not choosing the wrong system. It is choosing the fittings and the control separately.
Somebody picks beautiful light fittings on the advice of a lighting shop. Somebody else, later, picks a smart switching system. Both choices are perfectly good. Then at commissioning the dimmer cannot dim the lights, because the fittings expect one kind of dimming signal and the switch produces a different one entirely. That is not a fault. It is a compatibility mismatch, and it is only fixable by replacing one side or the other after both are installed and paid for.
Why KASTA
KASTA is a mesh system. Every device talks to its neighbours rather than everything reporting back to one central hub, which means there is no single box whose failure takes the house down with it. The switch plates are physical plates on the wall that work like switches, so the house stays usable by a visitor, a housesitter or a ten year old without an app or an explanation. Automation that only works through a phone is a house that stops working when the phone is flat. The app should be the convenient way to control the house, never the only way.
What automation is actually for
Three things. Scenes, so one press sets a room. Not thinking about it, so outdoor lighting follows the sunset through the year rather than a timer you reset twice, and hallway lighting comes on low overnight rather than at full brightness. And control from where you are, from the bedroom or from away. If a proposed feature does not fall into one of those three, it is usually there to be demonstrated rather than lived with, and we will say so.
Retrofitting to a house that is already finished
Automation is easiest and least expensive when it is decided during a renovation or new build, while the walls are open. It can be retrofitted and we do that, but the honest position is that the earlier it is decided the more it can do. What is achievable depends on what wiring exists behind the existing plates, so we look before quoting and we are clear about the limits before you commit.
How it runs.
A conversation about how you live
Which rooms you use at night, who gets up first, what annoys you about the house now. This produces a better system than a feature list does.
Design
Plate positions, ganging, scenes and the dimming check against every specified fitting.
Installation
At first fix and second fix alongside the electrical work.
Commissioning
We program the scenes with you standing there, adjust the levels, name them and label everything. Then we leave you with a system you can change yourself.
Licensed, and on site ourselves.
The same two people specify the control, install it, program the scenes with you and label the result. Nothing is handed to a third party halfway through, which is why the dimming works on the day it is commissioned rather than becoming somebody else's problem.
East Arc Group Pty Ltd is a licensed electrical contractor in South Australia, licence number BLD 356143, ABN 20 694 108 328. George Pappas and Arie Minenko are the two directors and both of them are on site for the work. There is no crew sent in our place and no subcontractor you have not met.
Common questions.
Does the house still work if the internet goes down?
Yes. KASTA is a mesh system and the switch plates are physical switches. Local control keeps working with no internet and no phone. What you lose is remote access from outside the house.
Can I retrofit automation to a house that is already finished?
Often yes, depending on what wiring exists behind the switch plates. We will look before quoting. The result is usually more limited than it would have been during a renovation, and we will be clear about what is and is not achievable before you commit.
Will my existing light fittings dim properly?
That is exactly the question to ask, and it is the one most often skipped. Different fittings dim by different methods and not all of them are compatible with a given dimmer. Send us the fittings or the specifications and we will check before anything is ordered.
Do I have to use an app?
No. Every automated circuit is still operable from a plate on the wall. We design it so anybody can walk in and use the house without instruction.
Can you add to it later?
Yes. Plates and devices can be added to a mesh system afterwards. It is worth telling us at design stage what you might want later, because a little extra cabling at rough-in keeps those options open without any further work later.
Do you do automation without doing the lighting?
We can, but it is not where the value is. The main advantage we offer is specifying the control and the fittings together. If the fittings are already chosen and installed, we will check compatibility and tell you honestly what is workable.
Decide the control before the fittings are ordered.
If the lights are already chosen, send us the specifications and we will check what can actually be dimmed before anything is bought. If nothing is chosen yet, that is the better call to make.