Why your home needs design, not gadgets.
Most smart home offerings in Singapore start with a hardware list and end with an installation date. We start with how your household actually lives, and end with a system designed around it. Here's how we think.
Six things we believe about smart homes.
- 01 / 06
Designed around the household, not the platform.
The platform serves the household, not the other way around. We choose between Apple Home (the polished path) and Home Assistant (the open path) based on who lives in your home: what phones they carry, what habits they have, what depth they want from the system. The platform is downstream of the household.
- 02 / 06
Open platforms only.
We work on platforms that respect the homeowner's right to own their system. Apple Home and Home Assistant both qualify. Closed ecosystems (where one vendor controls the hardware, the app, and the future of your smart home) don't. If a smart home company can only sell you what's in their own catalogue, they're not designing for you. They're selling you a bundle.
- 03 / 06
Hardware that works with you.
We're hardware-neutral. Aqara for switches and sensors. UniFi for networking. Reolink for cameras when local NVR matters. Schneider when the household wants premium. Shelly relays for retrofitting Singapore's no-neutral switches. IKEA for repeaters and budget options. Each chosen for fit, not loyalty.
- 04 / 06
Designed to be used.
Approachability matters more than invisibility. Smart homes that *look* invisible often *feel* unusable: to helpers, to visiting parents, to kids, to guests. We design for everyone in the household. Wall switches as the universal interface. Wall-mounted physical controls where they help. A printed Smart Home Cheat Sheet inside the tech station cabinet, mounted with 3M Command adhesive. The smart parts of the home should support the household, not replace its rituals.
- 05 / 06
Wired backbone, wireless everywhere else.
Cat6 ethernet for cameras, hubs, and access points. PoE for power-over-ethernet devices. Wi-Fi 6 for everything mobile. Zigbee or Thread for low-power sensors. The wired backbone is what makes the wireless layer reliable. Every smart home that "feels flaky" has a network problem hiding in it.
- 06 / 06
Repairable by the homeowner.
We document the system so you can understand it. We use platforms with public documentation and active communities. We pick hardware that doesn't require us to come back. The Smart Home Cheat Sheet covers the everyday troubleshooting. Haiteku Care exists for the things that genuinely need expertise, not for the things that should never have been confusing in the first place.
What most Singapore smart home companies actually sell.
Most Singapore smart home companies sell hardware bundles. They import white-label devices from one or two factories, rebrand them, and price the result as a "smart home package" with installation included. It looks impressive. But you end up locked into a single vendor. The cameras only talk to that vendor's app. The thermostat only works through their cloud. When you want to add anything later, you're back to that company or starting over.
That's not what we do. Haiteku is a design consultancy. We work on platforms anyone can support (Apple Home, Home Assistant) and pick hardware brand by brand for what actually fits your home. You source it however you want. We document everything for you and the next person who works on your home. If you ever stopped working with us, your smart home keeps running.
Apple Home or Home Assistant: chosen for fit.
We design on two platforms. Both are open, and both work with most of the same hardware. The choice between them is a fit decision, not a price decision. Integration fees are the same on either, and the infrastructure cost differs by about S$200.
Apple Home: the polished path
For households where everyone uses an iPhone, where simplicity is the highest value, where Siri is the natural voice interface, where Apple's privacy posture matters. Apple Home keeps the system tight and the controls predictable.
Home Assistant: the open path
For households with mixed phones (iPhone and Android), or for households that want hardware Apple Home doesn't support (Reolink cameras, certain aircon brands), or for advanced automation needs. Home Assistant runs locally on a small hub in your home and works with virtually any voice assistant the household already uses. It gives the household depth Apple Home can't match.
The Design Consult is where the platform decision actually happens. Until then, the estimate captures your intent ("Apple Home", "Home Assistant", or "Not sure yet"), and "Not sure yet" is the most honest answer for many households at the estimate stage.
Haiteku vs most companies
What we do differently.
Platform
Locked to a vendor's app
Open: Apple Home or Home Assistant
Hardware
Bundled and rebranded
You source direct, no markup
Ownership
Undocumented; "ours, not yours"
Documented; you own the system
Continuity
Stops working if the company closes
Any installer can take over
Ready to start?
Two ways in. Get a free estimate, or book a Design Consult to start the design conversation.