Walk through any home improvement store and you'll see an entire aisle dedicated to smart home gadgets — smart bulbs, smart plugs, smart doorbells, smart everything. Some of it is genuinely useful. Some of it will collect dust in a drawer by next year.
As electricians who handle smart home installations across Southern Maine, we are often asked which upgrades are worth the investment and which ones actually need professional wiring. Here's our honest take.
Smart Upgrades That Need an Electrician
These are the installations that involve your home's actual wiring — the stuff behind the walls. Don't try these yourself.
Smart Light Switches and Dimmers
This is the single best smart home upgrade for the money. Unlike smart bulbs (which we'll get to), smart switches control the fixture itself. They work with any bulb, they don't lose connectivity when someone flips the wall switch, and they last for years. The catch is that most smart switches require a neutral wire in the switch box, and many older homes in Portland and Westbrook don't have one. That means running new wire — a job for a licensed electrician.
Whole-Home Surge Protection
If you're investing thousands of dollars in smart devices, automated lighting, and connected appliances, you need to protect them. A whole-home surge protector installs at your electrical panel and guards every circuit in your house against voltage spikes from lightning, utility switching, and grid fluctuations. Maine's coastal storms make this especially important for homes in Cape Elizabeth, Scarborough, and along the coast.
Dedicated Circuits for Home Offices
Remote work is here to stay, and a proper home office setup needs more than a power strip behind the desk. We install dedicated 20-amp circuits for home offices to support multiple monitors, printers, routers, and other equipment without overloading shared household circuits. This is a straightforward residential electrical job that usually takes a few hours.
Outdoor Smart Lighting
Landscape lighting, security floodlights, and pathway lights that integrate with your smart home system all require proper outdoor wiring. We run weather-rated circuits, install GFCI protection, and mount fixtures that can handle Maine winters. Homeowners in Falmouth and Gorham with larger properties especially benefit from automated outdoor lighting zones.
Why the Neutral Wire Matters
Traditional switches simply interrupt the hot wire, so older switch boxes often contain only a hot and a switched leg — no neutral. A smart switch needs a small amount of constant power for its radio, and most get it from a neutral. Code has required a neutral at most switch locations in new work for more than a decade, but many Southern Maine homes were wired long before that. The options are to run a new cable to the box, use one of the few no-neutral smart switches designed for that situation, or put the smart control at a location that already has a neutral. We check your boxes before recommending a product.
Hardwired Smoke and CO Alarms
Interconnected, hardwired smoke alarms are required in new homes and major renovations, and they are a worthwhile upgrade in older ones: when one alarm sounds, they all do. Some smart versions also send an alert to your phone. Any work in the walls to add or replace them is electrical work.
Smart Upgrades You Can Do Yourself
Not everything needs a professional. These plug-and-play devices work well without touching your wiring:
- Smart plugs — Plug them into any outlet to control lamps, fans, and small appliances from your phone. No wiring needed.
- Smart speakers and hubs — Amazon Echo, Google Nest, Apple HomePod — they just plug in.
- Smart thermostats — Most modern thermostats like the Nest or Ecobee install with existing thermostat wiring. If your system is compatible, this is a 30-minute DIY job.
- Smart bulbs — They work, but we generally recommend smart switches instead for a cleaner, more reliable setup.
- Video doorbells — If you already have a doorbell transformer, most Ring or Nest doorbells install without an electrician. If you don't have existing doorbell wiring, call us.
Planning a Smart Home from Scratch?
If you're building a new home or doing a major renovation, that's the ideal time to wire for smart technology. Running low-voltage cable, adding neutral wires to every switch box, pre-wiring for security cameras, and installing a structured wiring panel costs a fraction of what it would after the drywall goes up.
We work with builders and homeowners across Windham, South Portland, and Saco to plan smart-ready electrical systems during the construction phase. It's one of the smartest investments you can make in a new build.
What Happens When the Power Goes Out?
Maine ice storms and nor'easters knock out power regularly, and a smart home without power is just a home. Smart switches still work as ordinary switches when the Wi-Fi is down, which is one more reason to prefer them over smart bulbs. If you rely on connected locks, cameras or a sump-pump alarm, consider a small battery backup for the router and hub, or a standby generator — see our guide on whole-house vs. portable generators for Maine homes.
The Commercial Side
Smart technology isn't just for homes. We also install automated lighting, occupancy sensors, and programmable controls for commercial properties — offices, restaurants, retail spaces, and more. Occupancy sensors and schedules cut the hours that lights run in empty rooms, which is where most of the savings come from.
Don't Overbuild — Start Where It Matters
Our advice? Start with smart switches in your most-used rooms, add a good smart thermostat, and protect everything with a panel-level surge protector. That foundation covers most of what people actually want from a smart home. You can always add more later.
Want help figuring out what makes sense for your home? Reach out to Goodnow Electric for a free consultation. We'll walk through your home, assess your electrical system, and give you an honest recommendation — no upselling, no pressure. Check out our recent projects to see the kind of work we do, or learn more about our approach to every job.
Call (207) 318-1022 or fill out our online form and we'll get back to you within 24 hours. We serve all of Biddeford and Southern Maine. For lighting-specific upgrades, see our lighting installation and LED upgrade service and our article on why LED upgrades pay back fastest.