The story behind DomoticsWise and a
smarter way to plan your smart home

If you're building a smart home, it's easy to assume the first step is buying devices. That was my starting point too, and it led to the same problems many home automation DIYers run into: compatibility issues, unreliable automations, wasted money, and a setup that never quite delivers what you hoped it would.

This About page explains who is behind DomoticsWise, why I created it, and the perspective that shapes the advice you’ll find here.

Who’s behind DomoticsWise

I’m Nick Le Riche, founder of DomoticsWise. I write about smart home planning for DIYers who want to make better decisions before they start buying products.

My background is in engineering and information technology. I studied and worked in electrical, electronic and telecommunications engineering early in my career, then spent more than 20 years in IT, eventually retiring as a Solution Architect. That work taught me to begin with requirements, weigh trade-offs carefully, and think seriously about reliability, compatibility, and risk.

That's the mindset I now bring to home automation.

Who this site is for

DomoticsWise is for two kinds of readers.

First, it’s for people who are new to smart home technology and want to avoid expensive mistakes from the start.

Second, it’s for DIYers who already own some smart devices but feel that all they really have is a collection of products that work well individually. They want to understand how to combine them to get results that can’t be achieved by any single device alone.

If you want your smart home to be practical, dependable, and shaped around what you actually need, you’re in the right place.

Why I created this site

I’ve been a home automation DIYer for more than 10 years, but I didn’t begin in the best way.

Like many people, I was drawn in by the possibilities and started buying devices before I had properly thought through what I wanted my smart home to do. Over time I bought various products, including smart bulbs, door and window sensors, and presence sensors, without a clear plan for how they would work together or what specific problems they were meant to solve.

Some of those devices are still unused. They may be useful one day, but for now they are a reminder that buying first and thinking later is an expensive way to learn.

One example stands out. I bought a presence sensor on impulse because I wanted to automate the landing lights at night, so they would turn on only when needed instead of leaving a light on permanently. I was using Home Assistant with Zigbee Home Automation, and because the product was described as Zigbee compatible, I expected it to work as intended.

The device appeared in Home Assistant, which seemed promising. But when I started building the automation, I found that the occupancy detection feature I actually needed was not available. Only the temperature and humidity sensors were exposed. After more digging, it became clear that this was the expected behaviour for my setup and that I would need an additional smart hub or third-party software to get access to all of the features.

So, I abandoned the idea, and the device (along with others) has been sitting in my desk drawer ever since.

Every time I opened the desk drawer and saw the devices doing nothing more than gathering dust, it was a blunt reminder that I had not followed the structured approach I had relied on throughout my professional career.

As a Solution Architect, the best designs always started from the top down. First define the requirements. Then examine the trade-offs. Then consider reliability, compatibility, and risk before choosing the components. But when I started with home automation, I had done the complete opposite. I had started with products and hoped a workable system would somehow emerge.

Once I recognised that, my approach changed.

How I think about smart home planning

My view is simple: a smart home works better when you plan before you buy.

That means being clear about what you want your smart home to do before you start choosing devices. It means thinking through constraints, compatibility, and reliability in advance. It also means being honest about which ideas are worth pursuing and which are not.

For example, I once considered integrating my garage door into my home automation setup. But after thinking through the actual requirement, I realised the transmitters supplied when the door was installed already did the job well enough. No added complexity was needed.

I’ve applied the same thinking more successfully elsewhere. One automation notifies me if I go to bed and turn off my bedside lamp while one of the downstairs doors is still open. The lamp turns back on red. It’s warned me a couple of times that I should make sure the house is secure before going to sleep.

That is the approach behind DomoticsWise: treat home automation as a design problem, not a shopping exercise.

What you’ll find here

This site focuses on requirements-first smart home advice for DIYers. That includes:

• Thinking through what you want to achieve
• Avoiding mismatched or unnecessary purchases
• Understanding compatibility and reliability before you commit
• Making budget-aware decisions
• Designing solutions that are useful in real life, not just interesting in theory

The goal is not to push products first. It is to help you think clearly, reduce mistakes, and build a smart home setup that works for you.

Where to start

With DomoticsWise, I want to show you how to tackle your home automation projects in a way that helps you avoid the mistake of buying products on impulse, rather than for a clear purpose.

If you're new here, the best next step is to visit the **Getting Started** section, where I walk through the foundations of planning a smart home properly before making buying decisions.