Meet the Northern Ireland smart-tech maker bringing ‘everyday magic’ to homes and workplaces

I spent 10 years working as a software developer before founding the smart technology design and installation company Epitome Living in Moyraverty.

Alongside my full-time job, I also joint-owned and ran a small event production and audio visual installation company, so my eventual move to focus on Epitome Living full-time came as no surprise to anyone.

My interest in smart technology began when I saw the potential of what early smart products could do to enhance our experience of the built environments we live and work in. When I was young I used to read about the home automation industry online, and as I grew up I saw it maturing and intersecting with other tech I was interested in too.

I founded Epitome Living eight years ago to enhance people’s lives at home with technology that automates everyday tasks like turning on lights, controlling the building’s temperature, and opening and closing blinds.

We work with architects and lighting designers right at the beginning of our projects, and then we’re on site down the line doing all the product installations.

My goal has always been to simplify people’s lives with technology. I never want to install technology for technology’s sake. In my eyes, it should always be invisible where appropriate, connected, and designed around user experience.

Lately we’ve been focusing on how the usefulness of building automation extends to second and third spaces like offices, restaurants, and hotels. Because we put people first in the design of our systems, we strive to create beautiful end experiences for the people using a space, with technology that’s easily managed by anyone behind-the-scenes.

Being design-led is unusual in our industry. Our focus on the ease of the deployment of our tech means that we do the majority of our manual work off site at our workshop in Craigavon. That means that when it comes to being on site, we’re able to streamline our installation process and focus on how things look and feel around the building.

Typical days for me skew from business-centric to project-centric. Every single day I check on our finances and catch up with my colleagues, but the rest of my time is dictated by our project timelines.

Some days I’m doing outreach to potential clients, some days I’m making sure our current clients are happy with how their projects are moving, and other days I’m working on improving our business processes.

I also keep on top of industry trends every day. Technology’s changing all the time, so it’s my job to know what to chase and, more importantly, what not to chase.

In the past eight years we’ve worked on projects that have been nominated for awards and been highlighted as reference projects by our suppliers. Those have been huge highs for us, as we strive to make every project the best it can be. It’s great to see those efforts recognised.

On a smaller scale, I’m still on a high every time we give a client a walk-through of their home on move in day for our residential projects. Because you don’t see much of our technology in a space, seeing the automation work like magic through the client’s eyes is a real joy. I love knowing that we’ve improved their lives with the systems we’ve created for them.

The nature of trade work means that project scheduling can sometimes create a clash of handover dates with other trades working on someone’s building. Our timelines need to be really tight so we can deliver on our promises for clients and not let delays elsewhere in the project keep us back so much.

A big help for us in this area is communication. That’s right from the beginning when a client first gets in touch. We need to know their expectations and their thoughts about the future of the spaces we’re designing for so we can recommend the best tech for their needs now and down the line.

Communicating with us early also means we know which other trades are involved from the beginning and we can link in with them as soon as possible so we’re all on the same page.

We’re definitely doing something right as a company, as we’ve had multiple repeat customers for high-end projects. As a small team, we all have to step into key roles on these projects at times. That includes handling tricky issues or changes on a project, or handling a handover process with a client. I’m really proud that our people-first mindset means we do that really well - both for each other and for our clients.

If I had the chance to build Epitome Living again, I’d focus on niche areas beyond residential far sooner. We’ve been fortunate to thrive in the residential market, and we’ve applied our technology to a massive variety of projects outside of it, but it’s become harder to get Epitome Living out of the typecast of residential as time has gone on.

That should change, however, as we’ve recently hired someone to work on our communications strategy. We love talking about what we do, but we’ve found it tricky in the past to fully explain what it is we do and how it’s of benefit to many different groups of people.

We’re also building our own showroom at our headquarters in Craigavon so that we have a space to invite our clients to when they get in touch. We’ve had satellite showroom facilities since 2018, but this will be the only dedicated smart technology experience space in Ireland (that we know of!). This has been a dream of mine for a while, so I’m excited to see it coming together, ready for launching in 2026.

Doing good with our tech is something we’ve wanted to focus on for a while too. That’s taking shape at the moment with a collaboration between ourselves and a home adaptation and mobility company in Belfast.

We’re currently installing our tech in their showroom to show how it can facilitate independent living for people with additional needs through ambient assisted living.

You can hear more about one of our projects in the video accompanying this article. Do get in touch if it inspires you to transform your space.

It’s going to be another good year for Epitome Living in 2026 - I can feel it already...