We're building
a monitoring
business.
Follow along.
A father and son, a $980 Amazon cart, and a plan to turn open-source smart home hardware into a real professional service. Nothing is finished yet. That's the point.
This is the beginning of something, documented in public so you can learn from it -- or hire us when we're done proving it works.
My son is two weeks from graduating. Before he walks across that stage, we wanted something real to show: a serious technical project with a business model behind it, built on hardware we've already ordered and paid for.
The idea is straightforward. Professional smart monitoring installs -- security cameras, environmental sensors, leak detection, climate control, presence detection -- are genuinely useful for small businesses, rental properties, and homeowners. But getting them done right, integrated properly, and maintained over time is harder than it looks. Most people end up with consumer hardware tied to monthly cloud subscriptions, or they pay an integrator a significant premium for a proprietary system they can't modify themselves.
We think there's a better way. Open protocols. Local control. Custom software on top. And a service layer that makes it accessible to people who don't want to spend weeks figuring it out themselves.
We are not going to pretend this is a weekend project. Getting hardware like this properly configured -- Zigbee pairing, Z-Wave inclusion, camera streams, automation logic, and a coherent dashboard -- takes weeks of real work. We know that because we've done enough of this to understand what "properly" actually means.
We're documenting the journey for exactly that reason. If you want the real lessons and the real mistakes as we make them, follow along. If you'd rather hire someone who has already made them, that's what we're building toward.
Zigbee and Z-Wave don't go through anyone's cloud. They don't need your Wi-Fi password. They work when the internet goes down.
Every sensor in this build speaks one of two open mesh radio standards that have been tested across millions of installs worldwide. The cameras are PoE -- powered and networked over a single cable, recorded locally, no subscription required. The thermostat and valve actuator are Z-Wave. The sensors and smart plugs are Zigbee.
Tying it together is Home Assistant, open-source software that runs on your local network and connects everything into a single interface. It's free, it's powerful, and it's the foundation we're building custom software on top of -- purpose-built tooling for monitoring, alerting, and reporting that goes well beyond what any off-the-shelf app provides.
We're not just configuring someone else's system. We're building software to make it significantly more capable for real-world professional use.
The long-term value isn't the hardware -- anyone can order the same cart. It's the configuration expertise, the software we're developing, and the support that comes after. That's what a client actually pays for. The lessons we're able to share along the way are a side effect of doing the work in public.
The baseline hardware
Prices current as of ordering. One Amazon cart.
Why follow this?
If you're a small business owner, property manager, or homeowner curious about what serious smart monitoring actually looks like under the hood, this is the unfiltered version. Real configuration time. Real tradeoffs. Real cost.
If you're in tech or evaluating what a new graduate can actually build, this is a live portfolio. Every decision gets documented as we make it.
And if you get to the end of this series and decide you'd rather have someone else handle the setup, that's exactly the service we're building.
The hardware is ordered. The work starts now.
// Update · April 2026
There's a more personal reason we started this project -- one that probably resonates with a lot of families. Read post #2 for the full story.
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