A smart home design any contractor can price — and actually build.
Independent design documentation for lighting, automation, AV, networking and security. Written by people who've commissioned these systems for twenty years, checked against Australian standards by our own design engine, and issued so multiple integrators can tender the same scope like-for-like.
Design deliverable spread — lighting plan,
keypad schedule and spec sheet fanned out
Ask an integrator to design it and you'll get a spec for what they sell.
It's not dishonesty — it's just how the industry is built. The company designing your system is usually the company supplying it, so the design is shaped by their dealer agreements rather than your project. Three quotes come back, none of them describe the same system, and there's no way to compare them.
- Scope drifts between quotes — one integrator prices 40 lighting circuits, the next prices 26, and nobody can tell you which is right
- Platform lock-in arrives early — the hardware decision gets made before the design brief is finished
- Compliance is assumed — circuit limits and standards get checked on site, when changes are expensive
- The client carries the risk — variations land after rough-in, on your budget
Three mismatched integrator quotes side by side,
or a marked-up plan with query clouds
A complete documentation set. Not a brochure.
Everything below is issued as part of a standard design engagement. It's the package a contractor needs to price the job accurately and build it without ringing you every second day.
Circuiting, dimming method per load type, keypad locations and engraving schedules, scene logic, and daylight/occupancy strategy. Room by room, not zone by guess.
Distributed audio zones, speaker types and placement, display and projection positions, rack elevations, and the source infrastructure to feed all of it.
Structured cabling schedule, WAP positions with coverage intent, switch and VLAN plan, comms cabinet layout, and the cable pathways the builder needs to allow for.
Camera positions with field-of-view intent, intercom and door station locations, access control points, alarm zoning, and how it all reports back to the automation layer.
Drawings, device and circuit schedules, a written technical specification, and a bill of materials — coordinated so the numbers agree across every document.
Packaged so several integrators price identical scope. You get comparable numbers, a defensible recommendation, and no surprise exclusions buried in the fine print.
Three ways projects reach us.
The deliverable is the same. What changes is who we coordinate with and when we come in.
We work to your documentation set and drawing standards, attend coordination as required, and issue a services package that sits alongside your drawings without contradicting them. Your client gets comparable tenders; you don't get dragged into technology arguments.
Get the smart home scope defined and priced before it becomes a variation. We document what needs to be in the wall at rough-in, so the trades know what to allow for and the client's expectations are locked before plaster goes on.
You're building or renovating and you want the technology done once, properly, without being sold a package. We design to your brief and budget, then hand you a document you can put in front of any integrator in the country.
We don't sell hardware. That's the whole point.
Cindra takes no dealer margin, no supplier rebate and no referral fee. Our only commercial relationship on your project is the fixed design fee you pay us — which means the platform recommendation is driven by the brief, the budget and what we've seen survive ten years in the field.
- All major platforms — we design across the full range of lighting control, automation, AV and networking systems used in Australia
- Specified on merit — the right system for the project, not the one with the best trade terms
- Twenty years of commissioning — we know which products are a pleasure to service and which are a callout waiting to happen
- Standards encoded, not remembered — AS/NZS 3000 rules, circuit limits and DALI universe capacities are built into our design engine
- Your documents, your property — no lock-in, no proprietary format, take it to whoever you like
Rack elevation or commissioning shot —
hands on a keypad / laptop in a plant room
Four stages. Fixed fee at stage one.
You'll know the fee and the delivery date before we start drawing. Revisions within the agreed scope are included — we don't bill by the hour and we don't bill for changing our own mistakes.
Send plans and tell us how the house needs to work. We confirm scope and quote a fixed fee within one business day.
Platform recommendation, room-by-room control intent and an indicative budget range — reviewed with you before anything is documented.
Full drawing set, schedules, specification and bill of materials, run through the Cindra engine for standards and consistency checks.
We issue to your integrator shortlist, answer their questions, and help you compare what comes back on a like-for-like basis.
Every project is scoped and quoted individually.
There's no standard price for a smart home design, because there's no standard house. What we do fix is the number: once we've seen the plans and the brief, you get a single fee in writing, and it doesn't move unless the scope does.
A straightforward home starts around here. Larger, multi-level, multi-building or heavily serviced projects are scoped on their own merits and sit above it — sometimes well above. We'd rather quote you properly than anchor you to a number that was never going to hold.
What moves the fee: floor area, number of controlled circuits, how many disciplines are in scope, the level of documentation required, and whether we're issuing for open tender or to a nominated contractor.
- Concept design & platform recommendation — with an indicative build budget before documentation starts
- Full documentation set — drawings, schedules, specification, bill of materials
- Standards & consistency checks — run through the Cindra design engine
- Revisions within scope — included, not billed hourly
- Tender issue & integrator Q&A — we answer the questions so you don't have to
Quoted separately: CAD drafting and detailed drawing production are a separate service and are never included in the design fee. We'll price it alongside the design if you want it.
The things people ask before engaging us.
Do you install what you design?
How long does a design take?
Why don't you publish a price list?
What do you need from us to start?
Do you work outside Sydney?
Can you estimate the job as well?
Got a project on the boards?
Send us the plans and the brief. We'll come back within one business day with a fixed fee and a delivery date.