// automation · RedCyfer Automation · Active
A smart home that still works when the internet doesn't.
Most smart-home installs fail for two reasons: the network underneath them was never built for it, and the automations live on somebody else's cloud. I build the other way round — network first, control local, everything monitored from the same NOC that watches my managed networks. Lights, locks, cameras, climate, water, and everything else, running on hardware in your house. Every project is priced on a written quote you review line by line before anything is ordered.
Request a quote> What I can automate
Mixed brands are fine — that's the point of a neutral hub. The rule is that every device has to be controllable locally, so your house doesn't stop working because a vendor had an outage or decided to start charging for the feature you already bought.
Lighting & switches
In-wall switches that still work as switches, dimming, scenes, and a button by the door that shuts the whole house down for the night.
Z-Wave 800 · Zigbee · in-box relaysClimate
Thermostats that run their schedule on your hub with no account and no cloud, plus room-by-room temperature so you can see which rooms the HVAC is actually missing.
Z-Wave · Zigbee · line-voltage & zoningLocks & entry
Keypad deadbolts, guest and contractor codes that expire on their own, and a log of who came and went. Gates and shop doors on the property tier.
Z-Wave locks · relay/keypad accessCameras & recording
PoE cameras recording to a box on your property, with person, vehicle and animal detection running locally. No subscription, no footage leaving the house.
PoE · RTSP/ONVIF · local NVRWater & leak protection
Sensors under every appliance, and an actuator on the main that shuts the house water off by itself when one of them gets wet.
Leak sensors · automatic main shutoffSafety & alerting
Your existing smoke and CO alarms get a listener that pushes to your phone — you keep the certified detectors. Plus freeze, door, motion and presence.
Alarm listener · Zigbee sensors · mmWaveGarage, gates & grounds
Full local garage control including the Chamberlain openers that normally force you into a subscription. Irrigation that keeps its schedule offline.
ESPHome · local irrigation controlEnergy, well & generator
Circuit-level power monitoring, pump run-dry and short-cycle alerts, and confirmation that the generator actually started while you weren't home.
Current clamps · dry-contact statusShades, audio & panels
Motorised shades that track the sun off west-facing glass, multi-room audio into the speakers you already own, and wall panels pointed at your hub instead of a vendor app.
Zigbee/Matter shades · in-wall tablets> Packages
Starting points, not SKUs — every house is different, and the final figure comes from the quote. The ranges below are what comparable projects land at so you can tell early whether we're in the same ballpark.
Foundation
quoted
Typically $1,600–2,900 · network + hub + one or two subsystems
- Proper network segmentation — smart devices walled off from your computers
- Control hub installed on your hardware, backed up and version-controlled
- Usually lighting plus leak and door sensors with phone alerting
- The right first step if you want to see how you actually use it
Whole-home
quoted
Typically $5,500–12,000 · the common landing spot
- Lighting, climate, locks, and cameras with local recording
- Leak detection with automatic water shutoff, smoke and CO alerting
- Garage, dashboards throughout, remote access over your own VPN
- Scenes and routines tuned to how the household actually runs
Property
quoted
Shop, barn, guest house, office · also small-business sites
- Multiple structures linked over point-to-point wireless or fibre
- Gates, well and pump monitoring, generator and transfer-switch status
- Site-wide camera coverage with local recording
- Access control with logged entry for staff and contractors
Hardware is quoted at cost plus a flat handling margin and itemised on the proposal — you see every line. Labour is quoted as a fixed scope, not billed open-ended.
> Estimate it yourself
Count the things in your house and get a real number in about a minute. These are the same installed per-item prices I build a quote from — hardware, labour and programming included — so this should land close. It isn't a quote, because I haven't seen your walls yet.
Add a few items to see an estimate
An estimate, not a quote or an offer. It assumes existing switch boxes with a neutral wire and reasonable cable routes — older houses often need an electrician, which is the most common reason a real quote moves. Travel outside the local area is quoted separately. The monthly figure is NetCare plus Automation Care. The tier above is a guide: the package ranges are what typical projects cost, and a heavily specced job in one tier can land past the next tier's floor.
> How a quote works
You approve a written number before anything is ordered.
Automation is the one thing I won't put a flat price on, because a 1,400 sq ft house with four switches and a 6,000 sq ft property with three buildings aren't the same job. What I will promise is that you never get a lump sum with no explanation.
- A walkthrough — in person or over video. The house, the network, whatever's already installed, and what you actually want it to do.
- A written, itemised quote — every device listed by model and price, labour as a fixed scope with the hours shown, and the monthly clearly separated from the build.
- You review it and change it. Cut a room, drop the shades, add cameras later — the quote gets revised until it's the project you want. No pressure, no expiring discount.
- Nothing is ordered until you sign it. Then we schedule, and the price on the paper is the price you pay unless you ask for something new mid-project.
> How it's built
These are dependencies, not a menu — each layer assumes the one above it. Starting at layer 3, which is where most people start by buying devices, is why so many houses end up with one app per gadget and nothing that talks to anything else.
The foundation
MikroTik routing and firewall, with smart-home gear on its own isolated VLAN. Cameras and cheap IoT devices get internet only where they need it and can't see your computers, work laptop, or NAS at all. Wi-Fi designed for coverage and roaming, wired backhaul where I can pull it.
- RouterOS firewall
- IoT VLAN isolation
- Managed Wi-Fi
- PoE switching
- Filtered DNS
A hub that lives in your house
The automation engine runs on hardware on your property, not in a vendor's data centre. Automations, schedules and scenes keep running during an internet outage — the only thing you lose is remote access from off-site. Configuration is version-controlled and backed up, so a dead drive is a restore, not a rebuild.
- Local automation engine
- Scenes & schedules
- Config in version control
- Off-site backups
Hardware chosen for a local API
Devices get picked for whether they can be controlled locally, not for what's on the endcap at the hardware store. Anything cloud-only gets flagged before it goes in, and you decide.
- Z-Wave
- Zigbee
- Matter / Thread
- ESPHome
- PoE / RTSP
How people actually use it
Wall panels, phone dashboards, physical switches that still behave like switches, and voice if you want it. Remote access runs over your own WireGuard tunnel back to the house rather than a manufacturer's relay — no subscription between you and your own front door, and no third party holding a key.
- Phone & tablet dashboards
- Wall panels
- WireGuard remote access
- Per-person permissions
Somebody watching it
The house reports into the RedCyfer NOC the same way my managed networks do. I see the router, the hub and the critical devices go offline before you do, and most fixes happen remotely without anyone driving out.
- 24/7 NOC monitoring
- Remote fixes
- Managed updates
- Backup verification
> Why local-first matters
Cloud-dependent smart homes work beautifully right up until they don't. Here's what each bad day looks like on both architectures.
| What happens | Typical cloud setup | How I build it |
|---|---|---|
| Internet goes down | Lights, locks and thermostats stop responding to automation | Everything keeps running locally; you lose only off-site access |
| Vendor shuts the service down | Hardware becomes a paperweight — this keeps happening across the industry | Devices with local control keep working; the hub doesn't care the vendor left |
| Vendor adds a subscription | Pay it, or lose features you already bought | Core functions never depended on their servers |
| Camera firmware phones home | Footage and metadata leave your property by default | Cameras sit on an isolated VLAN with no route out; recording stays on-site |
| A device gets compromised | It's on the same flat network as your laptops and NAS | Firewalled to its own segment — it can't reach anything that matters |
| Something breaks at 9pm | Tier-one support script, then a truck roll next week | I'm already alerted; most issues are fixed remotely that evening |
> The equipment standard
Every device I spec carries a local-control rating, and it's on the quote next to the price. You should know exactly which parts of your house depend on someone else's servers — ideally none of them, but if you want a particular product that does, that's your call to make with the tradeoff in front of you.
Local-control rating
- ●
- Full local. Works with the internet down. No vendor account, no cloud relay.
- ◐
- Local core. Runs locally day to day, but needs a vendor bridge or account for setup or remote access.
- ○
- Cloud-dependent. Installed on request, with what breaks when the vendor goes away stated plainly.
| Category | What goes in | Local | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Network | MikroTik routers, managed access points, PoE switching | ● | The same platform the RedCyfer NOC runs on |
| Hub & compute | Hub appliance, or a small Intel box when there are cameras to process | ● | Zigbee, Thread and Z-Wave radios rather than proprietary hubs |
| Switches | Z-Wave 800 and Zigbee in-wall switches, or relays behind the ones you have | ● | In-wall over smart bulbs anywhere there's a switch |
| Climate | Z-Wave and Zigbee thermostats with no app account | ● | Wi-Fi thermostats available on request, rated accordingly |
| Locks | Z-Wave deadbolts, BHMA Grade 2 on main entries | ● | About a year on a set of batteries, versus a few months on Wi-Fi |
| Cameras | PoE cameras with a local NVR and on-box AI detection | ● | No per-camera licence and no cloud tier |
| Sensors | Leak, door, motion, presence, temperature, alarm listeners | ● | The cheapest layer and the one that pays for itself first |
| Shades & audio | Zigbee and Matter shades, local-network audio streamers | ◐ | Playback is local; streaming services are naturally online |
The full itemised catalogue — every model, protocol, rating and price — comes with your quote. Ask and I'll send it before the walkthrough.
> Keeping it running
Automation Care · from $50/mo
Automation attaches to a managed network rather than standing alone, because the monitoring and remote support are what make it maintainable. Care adds hub and device monitoring to the NOC, managed firmware and integration updates, backup verification, and automation changes on request — new routine, new user, moved a sensor. Your exact monthly is set with your quote and depends on how much house there is to watch.
It sits on top of NetCare, which starts at $24.95/mo and covers the router, filtered DNS and 24/7 network monitoring underneath.
See NetCare> What I won't put in
- Cloud-only cameras. Footage leaves your property, features sit behind a subscription, and none of it works during a vendor outage.
- Cloud-locked devices where a local version exists. The same hardware is often sold in a Zigbee or open-firmware variant. I buy that one.
- Line-voltage electrical work. New circuits, panel work, and anything needing a permit goes to a licensed electrician — I coordinate with yours or bring one in.
- Central-station alarm dispatch. I build the sensors, sirens and alerting that reach your phone; I'm not a monitoring company and don't dispatch police or fire.
> Straight answers
Why won't you just publish a price like your other plans?
Because I'd have to pad it. Everything else I sell is the same product for everyone — one router, one phone number, one website plan. Automation is a different job in every house: how many switches, how far apart the buildings are, whether there's existing wiring, whether the shop needs a link. A published number would either be too high for a small job or a bait figure that grows once I see the place. The quote fixes that, and you get to argue with it before you sign it.
Do I have to use Home Assistant?
It's the usual answer because it's mature, local, and doesn't lock you in. Where a house needs something more purpose-built I write it. Either way it runs on hardware you own, and you keep the configuration.
What happens if I stop paying you?
The house keeps working. Automation hardware you buy outright and own, including the hub, and the configuration is yours. You lose the monitoring, the managed updates and the engineer — not your lights. Network gear on a NetCare plan is fleet equipment and works like your ISP's modem rental, so that piece either comes back or gets bought out.
Can you work with the smart devices I already own?
Usually. Bring me a list and I'll tell you what integrates locally, what integrates but leans on a cloud, and what's honestly better replaced. Nothing gets thrown out to pad a quote.
Will Alexa or Google still work?
Yes — they sit on top as a voice surface. They just don't get to be the brain, so when Amazon changes something your automations don't break. Fully local voice is an option too if you'd rather nothing left the house at all.
How long does a project take?
Foundation is usually a day or two. A whole-home build runs one to three weeks depending on how much wire has to be pulled and how quickly hardware arrives. Property jobs are scheduled in phases so you're never without something that was working yesterday.
How far do you travel?
Hands-on installation runs out of Jonesboro and covers Northeast Arkansas and the surrounding region as standard. Farther is genuinely possible — travel is quoted as its own line so you can see exactly what it costs, and property-tier jobs regularly justify it. Everything that isn't physical is not limited by distance at all: network design, the segmentation plan, hub configuration, dashboards and ongoing monitoring are all delivered remotely anywhere in the country, and plenty of clients have me do that part while a local electrician or installer handles the hardware.
> Request a quote
Tell me about the place and what you want it to do. I'll come back personally — usually within a business day — with either a few questions or a time for the walkthrough. No obligation, and the quote you get back is itemised.
Every automation project is priced on a written, itemised quote that you review and approve before any hardware is ordered; the ranges shown are what comparable projects have cost and are not an offer. Hardware is quoted at cost plus a flat handling margin and listed by model. Automation hardware is bought outright and owned by you, including the hub and its configuration; network gear supplied under a NetCare plan remains RedCyfer fleet equipment on your subscription. Automation Care requires an active managed-network plan. Licensed electrical work is subcontracted to a licensed electrician. RedCyfer is not a central-station alarm monitoring provider and does not dispatch emergency services. Jonesboro-based: on-site installation covers Northeast Arkansas and the surrounding region, with travel quoted separately beyond it, while design, configuration and monitoring are available nationwide.