Start a project
Start a project
Planning guides
Scoping an installation without a sales conversation. What changes the price, what has to happen before drywall, and what a proper quote should contain.
Smart home · 7 min
The gap between a shelf of smart devices and an integrated system is mostly infrastructure and programming. Here is where the money goes.
Audio · 6 min
Most people count speakers. The number that actually drives the quote is how many zones need to play something different at once.
Shades · 6 min
Shade quotes vary more than almost anything else we install. Five variables explain most of the gap.
Networking · 6 min
Running cable is cheap. Getting to where the cable needs to go is what you are paying for.
Networking · 6 min
The cabling outlasts every piece of equipment plugged into it. Plan it for the building, not for this year.
Conference rooms · 7 min
Equipment lists are easy to compare and tell you almost nothing. The room decides the budget.
Studios · 7 min
Most studio budgets are spent in the wrong order. The room comes first, and it is not close.
Security · 6 min
The useful question is not how many cameras. It is what each camera is meant to achieve.
Security · 6 min
Readers are the cheap part. The door, its hardware and its wiring decide what this costs.
Home theater · 7 min
Basements make the best theaters and the worst retrofits. Most of why is decided before drywall.
Home theater · 6 min
Acoustic panels and soundproofing solve different problems. Only one of them can be added later.
Smart home · 6 min
Retrofits are entirely doable. The trick is sequencing them so you never pay to undo your own work.
Networking · 6 min
The difference is not the radios. It is how each unit talks back to the network.
Conference rooms · 5 min
People buy a better microphone. The microphone was rarely the problem.
Conference rooms · 6 min
Most meeting room problems are coordination problems, and they are settled during the remodel.
Studios · 6 min
A company studio succeeds or fails on whether staff can run it without help. Design for that.
Project planning · 7 min
One checklist for the whole project, organised by when each decision has to be made.
Project planning · 6 min
Usually yes. What decides it is documentation and credentials, not the equipment.
Project planning · 6 min
Two quotes for the same job can differ enormously. Usually it is what one of them left out.
Nothing matches that combination