A smarter home to match the digital transformation era, Smart Home Solutions aim to make every home smarter with its suite of “solutions”.

From portable devices to installing solar systems, the growth of Intel Home Solutions, which trades as Smart Home Solutions, has shown remarkable resilience over the past nine years. A small store located at 90b Red Hills Rd, Kingston, is larger than it appears, extending to Florida in the United States and online with its Amazon store.

In 2014, young Debon Lysight, CEO of Smart Home Solutions, started the business with the name Portable Experience, offering portable chargers for mobile devices on the go with the tagline “Where Convenience Matters.” Soon, the desire for convenience extended into homes, a controlled environment with everything right at your fingertips was the vision of Lysight, and a year later, Portable Experience rebranded to Smart Homes Solutions.

With a team of 14 people including his mother Karen Lysight as secretary, Smart Home Solutions gradually grew in number and offerings, introducing voice automated help, remote connectivity to homes and smart lock systems, throwing the use of traditional keys to access a house out the window.

“At Smart Home Solutions, we are always looking at the smart aspect of any home,” said Lysight in an interview with the Jamaica Observer, while adding, “what we offer to our customers is not products, we offer solutions.”

In 2020, a new problem arose that Lysight aimed to find a solution for people who were home during the pandemic using more energy, sending their electricity bills through the roof.

“While everybody was at home, they wanted to be a little bit more efficient because now JPS had a lot more demand, their generators were probably overloading because the people that were usually not on the grid [because they were at work] are now on the grid.” He further explained that with a higher demand came a higher price tag and “people realised they can’t pay that bill,” added Lysight.

It led to the business launching its newest venture, a solar system, to help customers conserve on energy taken from the grid and in the process slashing electricity bills by more than 50 per cent. With this, the business caters predominantly to residential properties, including Airbnbs and apartments for common areas, and using solar, he says, is the efficient way to go.

“When you have a bill of $1 million and we can get it down to $600,000, it makes a difference.”

Supplying these solar system is challenging for the business because it takes a lot more capital. Lysight explained that while the company is still able to afford to continue the investments in solar, it still has not seen profits.

“I guess until things get a little bit more advanced where technology is more out there and get a little cheaper, we won’t really be making a lot of money from solar equipment because as it is, those things are more expensive.”

Along with using solar system to reduce electricity cost, Smart home Solutions adds the option to include a feature that takes conservation a step further. According to Lysight, “[If] customers have a problem, we have a problem.”

The problem was that its Airbnb clients had guests who would use the place like a hotel, so along with the solar system comes the installation of sensory channels.

“[This] ensures that if the door even opens when their AC is on, it will turn off, which makes their home a little bit more efficient and now they are saving energy,” said Lysight proudly.

These sensory channels automatically turn on appliances when someone enters and turn it off when someone leaves the house.

“Even the stove can be turned off remotely; we can lock down the entire unit,” added Lysight.

For Jamaicans, the focus is on safety. Smart Home Solutions’ smart locking system is the most demanded service for safety. The system grants five modes of access — fingerprint, biometrics, facial recognition, coded access and remote access to open a house from a mobile device.

“If you are in another country and a person is at the location in Jamaica at your home, once you have the Internet on your phone and the lock has Internet then it can be opened remotely.”

Popular amongst Airbnb operators is the generation of codes for people staying at a property for a period.

“We can also ensure that at a certain time, let’s say 5 o’clock their code doesn’t work at that time,” Lysight boasted as he emphasised that his solutions are geared towards convenience and safety.

Although the smart locking system is the most demanded, Lysight says as “the market for solar is growing and as technology improves, prices will fall, which will inevitably raise the margins, tipping the scale for solar.”

Despite these advancements, Smart Home Solutions said the high duties at the ports has forced it to offer some products through the Amazon store, allowing customers to purchase the system they need online when travelling and take it back home in their suitcase duty free, which he says would be more cost effective than getting it locally.

“Locks starts at US$165. If they can get a lock online from Smart Home, they get the same six months free maintenance and one-year warranty.”

As the country moves to become a digital society with technologies being incorporated into our homes, the question of protection from external threats such as hacking will arise.

“We are always trying to hack our own system, We do a stress test on the system to ensure the functionality and resilience of them,” Lysight assured, citing it has an encryption that’s difficult to hack.

“For you to hack that, you’re going to need quantum computers, and I don’t think we’re going to be there very soon.”

Nonetheless, all systems can be hacked, and Smart Home Solutions assures that preventative measures are taken including relevant firmware updates and yearly maintenance membership, which he encourages all his customers to sign onto.