Brooklyn, serving New York City and northern New Jersey
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Every system in the house, working as one.

Sync and Sense is a Brooklyn-based integration firm that designs and deploys connected homes across New York City and northern New Jersey.

Your home, on one screen

This is what your control panel could look like.

Tap around. Choose a scene, dim a light, lower a shade, nudge the temperature. Every project gets a panel like this, designed around your rooms and your routines, on your phone, a wall tablet, or both.

The rooms, devices, and numbers here are a demonstration. Yours shows your actual home, with names you'd recognize and nothing you don't use.

Prospect Heights Townhouse
7:42 pmTuesday
64° and clearAll quiet

Living Room

Works on iPhone, Android, iPad, wall tablets, and any browser. Voice through the assistant you already use. Open the panel full screen

Who we are

Technologists and pragmatists, not salespeople.

We won't talk you into a complicated system you don't need. Often the right answer is simpler than you'd expect.

We bring lighting, climate, shades, audio, security, and energy together into one system, tuned to how you actually live. The wall switches still work. Your phone and your voice assistant work too. The house responds the way you'd expect, without you having to think about it.

We don't tie you to proprietary systems. We build on open-source platforms and open standards, so your home is never locked to one manufacturer's catalog, pricing, or roadmap, and it can talk to almost anything, including the odd device nobody else supports. Our background is network engineering and software design, and it shows: systems that are secure by default, reliable, and easy to adjust without a service call.

We're not trying to be everything to everybody. We're trying to be absolutely excellent at what we do. For the more specialized work, we bring in trusted partners who are specialists in their own domains: a circle of contractors and practitioners built over years, people who think the way we do and whom we recommend freely. Working with us sorts out the smart home, and it opens the door to that whole circle. A consortium, if you will.

Privacy

Your home is nobody's business but yours.

Discretion and privacy are the goal, and how far to take it is up to you. Everything we build can run locally first, and if you'd like, locally only.

Local by design

Your system can live on a small computer inside your home rather than on someone else's servers. Everything built on local devices, which is most of it, keeps working when the internet is down: lights, shades, keypads, scenes, local cameras, and the automations behind them. Only devices that depend on their maker's cloud pause until it's back, which is one reason we favor local ones. Camera footage can stay on a drive in your own closet.

Remote access is a choice

Turn it on, turn it off, or keep it for just the few things you'd like to check from afar. When it's on, we route it through an encrypted connection you control wherever we can, rather than a vendor's cloud account.

No microphones unless you ask

We don't put listening devices in your rooms unless you want them. If you'd like voice control, we'll add it where you want it and nowhere else, with microphones you can see and switch off.

We also understand wanting to be connected and wanting it all to feel effortless, so we use as much or as little of the cloud as you'd like. For some clients that means the basics, kept simple and to the point. For others it means the full experience: voice assistants built on the latest generation of intelligent assistants, a house that speaks your language and can learn your routines and anticipate what you need. The dial is yours, and you can turn it either way later. Whichever you choose, discretion comes standard. We value privacy in this day and age, and we treat your home, your systems, and your name the way we'd want ours treated.

How we think

Technical, thoughtful, and personable.

Efficiency built in

We think about energy from the first walkthrough. Climate that eases off in empty rooms, shades that block summer sun and hold winter warmth, and lighting that isn't burning when nobody's there. Comfort stays the same. The bills shouldn't.

Contractors who know the building

The physical installation is done by your contractor or one from our network, and we only ever recommend licensed, insured contractors. The ones we work with are experts in the physical side of a home, down to insulation and R-values. If a room won't hold temperature, they'll tell you why before we add a single device.

Small sensors, big saves

Some of the best things we install cost almost nothing. Leak sensors under the kitchen sink and in the laundry room. Motion and occupancy sensors, so lights and climate respond to people rather than a schedule. Environmental sensors for temperature, humidity, and air quality. Cheap, preventative, and they tell you the moment something's off.

A record of what happened

The system keeps a history: when the front door opened, how warm the nursery got overnight, what the air conditioning cost you last July. Useful for spotting patterns, tuning the house, and having the facts on hand when something goes wrong. It stays in your home, and you decide how long it's kept.

What we connect

The brands you already own, or would choose anyway.

We're not tied to any of them. We pick the best device for each job and make it work with everything else.

Your own server, built in-house

Every client gets a small, dedicated server that we build and configure ourselves. It runs fully open-source software, it lives in your home, and no corporation controls it, gatekeeps it, or can decide one day to switch it off. Open source also means transparency: every line of code is public and reviewed by thousands of people, so a hidden data feed or a quiet backdoor has nowhere to hide for long. Your data stays in your house, under your control. We don't need to own it, store it, or even look at it.

Our foundation is Home Assistant, the fastest-growing community-built platform in the world and a breath of fresh air after the legacy systems: the dinosaurs that needed a rocket scientist to operate, cost a fortune, and were cumbersome on a good day and broken on a bad one. Every brand below is one we integrate on that server.

Talk to it however you like

Siri, Alexa, or Google, whichever is already in your pocket. All three can run the same house at once, and changing your mind later is painless. Prefer no microphones at all? Then the keypads and your phone do everything, and nothing in the house is listening.

Works with

  • Siri and Apple Home
  • Alexa
  • Google Home
  • Home Assistant

Lighting and Shades

Light is the thing you notice least and feel most. We layer it: keypads that still work like switches, dimmers that can warm as the evening goes on, and scenes named for how a room is really used, so "Dinner" means something. Motorized shades join in, rising with the morning, dropping against the afternoon sun, and closing when the house goes to sleep.

Preferred vendors

  • Lutron
  • Philips Hue
  • Hunter Douglas
  • Somfy
  • Inovelli
  • IKEA

Climate

Comfort without the thermostat wars. Room sensors tell the system where you actually are, so the bedroom is cool by bedtime and the study isn't heated for nobody. Central air, mini-splits, and most radiator setups can be brought under one control, and the house eases off when everyone leaves.

Preferred vendors

  • Ecobee
  • Nest
  • Sensibo
  • Daikin
  • Mitsubishi Electric
  • Aqara sensors

Audio

Music that follows you. Start a record in the kitchen, carry it out to the terrace, turn it down in the nursery, all from whatever app you already use. We tune levels room by room so "a little louder" means the same thing everywhere, and the speakers disappear into the design.

Preferred vendors

  • Sonos
  • Denon HEOS
  • Bluesound
  • Yamaha MusicCast
  • Apple TV
  • AirPlay 2
  • Chromecast

Security

Peace of mind, quietly. Cameras and doorbells you can review in seconds, locks that know who's home, and an alarm that can arm itself when the last person leaves. Footage stays on a drive in your home if you'd like it to. Then the quiet hero: a leak sensor under every sink that can text you before the floor is ruined.

Preferred vendors

  • UniFi Protect
  • Reolink
  • Axis
  • Ring
  • Yale Z-Wave
  • Schlage Z-Wave
  • Kwikset Z-Wave
  • Aqara leak sensors

Energy

Know what the house is doing when you're not looking. Circuit-level monitoring shows which appliance is quietly running up the bill, automations trim the waste, and if you have solar, you'll see what the roof is producing. Ting sits alongside the system and watches the wiring itself, catching an electrical fault before it becomes a fire, and many home insurance companies will pay for it, at no cost to you. Comfort stays exactly where you set it. Only the bill changes.

Preferred vendors

  • Shelly
  • Enphase solar
  • Sense
  • SolarEdge
  • Generac
  • Ting

Protocols

  • Matter
  • Thread
  • Zigbee
  • Z-Wave
  • Wi-Fi

Around the house

  • Tailwind garage
  • Hunter Hydrawise
  • Rain Bird
  • Rachio
  • Pentair
  • Awair
  • Roomba
  • Roborock

How we work

Free discovery. A $500 plan. A fixed implementation fee. Then $59 a month, billed annually.

  1. Discovery, free

    We get to know you, the home, and how you live in it. A conversation and a walkthrough, no charge, no obligation.

  2. The plan, $500

    A flat planning fee, no matter how big or small the job. You get a written design: what goes where, the exact products, and a firm price to implement it. The plan is yours to keep. Have us build it, take it to someone else, or do it yourself. The more accurate the floor plans, blueprints, and elevations you can share, the better the plan, so send what you have to the best of your ability.

  3. Equipment, your call

    We're licensed, authorized dealers for many of the brands we use and happy to handle procurement. Or buy it yourself, from Amazon or any retailer you prefer. Either way we integrate it.

  4. Installation, to code

    Use your own contractor or one from our trusted network. We only ever recommend licensed and insured contractors, and whoever does the work has our specifications to build from. We're a call away throughout, and can jump on a video call or a remote session with your installer any time. You pay them directly.

  5. Implementation, fixed fee

    One price, set by the scope, for all the software integration and customization: the server, the automations, the panel on your phone, iPad, or wall tablet, every control named, and a walkthrough of it all.

  6. Ongoing care, $59 a month

    Billed annually. Maintenance, updates, backups, health checks, and unlimited changes and revisions as your routines change. Reminders when a filter is due or a battery is low. Remote access is yours to grant or revoke at any time.

We work with homeowners in townhouses, condos, co-ops, and suburban homes across the five boroughs and northern New Jersey, and with architects, designers, and builders who want an integration partner their clients will thank them for. We're also proud to take on pro bono projects for charitable organizations and people in need. If that's you, just ask.

Principles

Seven principles guide every project.

  • In sync

    Lighting, climate, and audio respond together, so rooms feel right without constant adjustment.

  • Quietly elegant

    Technology serves the home rather than performing for it. Automations run in the background, and the wall switch still works.

  • Your controls, your choice

    We design around the phone and voice assistant you already use. Voice adds to physical controls; it never replaces them.

  • Private by default

    Processing stays local wherever possible, with the cloud used only where it genuinely adds value.

  • Secure by design

    Network access, segmentation, and maintenance get the same rigor as the automations themselves.

  • Clear and calm

    Consistent naming makes every control obvious. A notification means something needs your attention; otherwise, the house stays quiet.

  • Comfort without waste

    Automations cut unnecessary heating, cooling, and lighting, always within your household's preferences.

Questions

Straight answers.

What does Sync and Sense do?

We design, configure, and look after smart home systems for houses, townhouses, condos, and co-ops across New York City and northern New Jersey. Lighting, climate, shades, audio, security, and energy, brought together on one open-source control panel that runs on a small server inside your home.

What does it cost?

Discovery is free. Planning is a flat $500 whatever the size of the job, and the plan is yours to keep, whether or not you have us implement it. Implementation, meaning all the software integration and customization, is a fixed fee set by the scope of the plan. Ongoing care is $59 a month, billed annually, and includes maintenance, updates, backups, and unlimited changes and revisions. Equipment and installation are paid for separately: buy the gear through us or anywhere you like, and pay the installing contractors directly.

Do you use Home Assistant?

Yes. Home Assistant is our foundation. It's fully open source, runs locally in your home, and integrates with most major brands, including Lutron, Philips Hue, Sonos, Ubiquiti UniFi, Ecobee, Shelly, Enphase, Z-Wave locks, and Apple Home, Alexa, and Google Home.

Can my smart home work without the internet?

The parts built on local devices do, and that's most of what matters day to day: lighting, shades, keypads, scenes, local cameras, and the automations behind them all run on the server in your home. Devices that depend on their maker's cloud, such as Ring, Alexa, or Google, pause until the connection is back. We tell you which is which in the plan, and we lean toward local wherever we can. Remote access is optional and can be switched off entirely.

Do I have to have microphones or voice assistants?

No. We don't put listening devices in your rooms unless you want them. If you'd like voice control through Siri, Alexa, or Google, we add it where you want it and nowhere else.

Do you install Wi-Fi and networking?

Yes, and it's where every project starts. We specialize in commercial-grade Ubiquiti UniFi networks, and we can also work with TP-Link Omada, MikroTik, or the equipment you already have.

Who does the physical installation?

Your own contractor, or one from our trusted network. We only ever recommend licensed and insured contractors. They do the wiring, mounting, and installation from our specifications, and you pay them directly. We're a call, video call, or remote session away for the whole project. We do all the design, configuration, and ongoing care.

Where do you work?

Brooklyn is home base. We serve all five boroughs of New York City and northern New Jersey.

Get in touch

Tell us about your home.

Whether you're building, renovating, or just want the house you have to work better, we'd like to hear about it. Send us a text or WhatsApp, or share a few details in the form and we'll get back to you personally.

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Based in Brooklyn, serving all five boroughs and northern New Jersey.

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