Loxone, explained bypeople who install it.

From our own installations: a starter system for a 2-3 bed flat — automated lighting in the main rooms, room-by-room heating, and the app — runs £8,000-£15,000 installed and programmed. A 3-5 bed family home with whole-house coverage, blinds, and multi-room audio typically lands between £15,000-£40,000. Large or listed properties with everything automated start around £40,000. After that the running cost is zero: no subscriptions, and firmware updates are free for the life of the system.

No — and this is the single biggest difference from most competitors. The app is free, remote access is free, and firmware updates are free, forever. You buy the hardware once and own it. Compare that with platforms where remote access sits behind an annual fee, and the ten-year cost picture changes completely.

Yes, properly. Everything is processed locally on the Miniserver in your house, so if your broadband goes down, lighting, heating, scenes, presence logic, blinds, and the wall panels all carry on exactly as before — and the app still works while you’re on your own WiFi. The only things you lose are remote access from outside the house and the online weather feed. We demonstrate this to clients by literally pulling the internet cable.

You can buy some Loxone products online, but the platform is designed around certified partners, and in practice that’s how you get a system that works. The free Loxone Config software is genuinely open — a determined self-builder can learn it — but wiring a Tree network, commissioning presence sensors, and programming logic that behaves well in real family life is where projects go wrong. Most of the "rescue" work we do is finishing systems that started as DIY.

The Miniserver is the brain of the system — a small controller that lives in your consumer unit or rack and runs every decision locally: lighting scenes, heating logic, blind positions, alarm behaviour, energy management. Sub-millisecond response, no cloud round-trip. The configuration lives on the Miniserver itself, which matters: any certified partner can take over an existing system, because the programming is in your house, not on someone else’s server.

Tree is the wired technology — a green cable that daisy-chains switches, sensors, and lights back to the Miniserver. It’s what we install in new builds and full renovations because it’s effectively bombproof. Air is the wireless version: encrypted radio devices, including Nano modules small enough to fit behind your existing light switches. Air is what makes retrofits possible without redecorating — most of our period-property work in London is Air or a hybrid of both.

We install it daily, so we’re biased — but the honest downsides are in this guide: voice control is not the platform’s strength, you can’t walk into a shop and buy it, the dealer model means installation quality varies between companies, and the upfront cost is higher than DIY gear. What you get in exchange is a system that runs your home automatically, works offline, costs nothing monthly, and can be taken over by any certified partner if you fall out with your installer.

Alexa and Google Assistant integrations exist and work for basic commands, but if voice control is the centre of your smart home vision, Loxone’s philosophy will frustrate you — it’s built so you shouldn’t need to ask. As for other brands: the Miniserver speaks HTTP, UDP, Modbus, KNX, DALI, RS232 and more, so a competent installer can integrate a huge range of kit. We document real integrations we’ve commissioned — Shelly, Ajax, Hikvision, DoorBird, Paxton — in our integrations library, including the limitations.

Yes — this is one of Loxone’s most underrated features. The configuration lives on your Miniserver and Loxone Config is free to download, so any certified partner can open a system someone else installed and carry on. We’ve adopted plenty of orphaned systems where the original installer disappeared. Try asking a dealer-programmed platform the same question before you sign.

A wireless (Air) retrofit of a typical London home takes 5-10 working days including programming and handover. New builds are phased with the construction schedule — first-fix cabling while the walls are open, commissioning near the end. Either way, you get a named project manager and the programming is tuned after you’ve lived with it, because nobody knows how they use a house until they do.