Smart Home · AV · Lighting

None of the four routes is simply better; it depends on the stage of your property, the floor area and your budget. KNX is the international bus standard: the most stable and most expandable, ideal for villas and large apartments planned before first-fix electrical work, and the most expensive. RS-485 is widely used by domestic manufacturers — stability close to KNX at lower cost, though cross-brand interoperability is weaker. Wireless ecosystems such as Tuya are flexible and need almost no cabling, which suits homes that are already decorated; the device and app ecosystem is broad. Pure wireless (Zigbee / Bluetooth Mesh) is cheapest and fastest to start with — good for single-point retrofits or a light first step. Our approach is to design per space: a bus backbone for stability and service life, wireless at the edges for flexibility. The first proposal always includes a point schedule and tiered pricing, so you decide which part goes in first.

Yes, but it needs a gateway and a protocol translation layer. The Tuya ecosystem already covers a large number of third-party brands and can be managed in one app; running two ecosystems side by side (for example Tuya and KNX in the same project) requires gateway bridging to translate the different protocols into one command set. Yijia implements all five lines — KNX, Tuya, Tmall Qianwen, Aoogee and RS-485 — so mixed integration is routine work for us, not an extra risk.

Both are platform ecosystems; the difference lies in the interaction entry point and the partner structure. Tmall Qianwen focuses on natural voice and visual interaction and brings in Tmall Genie voice capability — a good fit for households that value voice control. Tuya has a larger global developer ecosystem, a wider range of compatible devices and easier overseas deployment. Decide based on which voice assistant you rely on and whether overseas use is on the horizon.

It depends on the protocol. KNX and RS-485 execute control logic locally: losing the internet only costs you remote app control and voice assistants, while local panels and sensor interlocks keep working. Cloud-dependent wireless ecosystems lose remote functions, but local scenes and physical switches usually still work. For projects where stability matters, we recommend keeping critical circuits — lighting, curtains, security — on local execution rather than in the cloud.

Three variables drive the budget: floor area, number of control points, and whether professional AV and lighting systems are included. In the Xiamen market: lighting, curtains, network and basic security for a 100–140 m² apartment typically runs to tens of thousands of RMB; a villa over 300 m² with whole-home automation and a private cinema runs from hundreds of thousands to over a million — our Taiwan Mountain Villa project in Xiamen falls into that bracket. Every proposal comes with tiered pricing, so implementation can be phased rather than done all at once.

Once the design is signed off, the quotation covers equipment, consumables, installation, commissioning and programming; AV and lighting work also includes acoustic treatment and lighting design. The scope is locked in the contract and any change goes through a formal variation order. We do not sign low and add costs later — that is written into our company values.