Most smart homes in Mallorca are built around a wall tablet nobody in the family can use. I build them around Apple Home — the interface everyone already knows — with professional systems doing the work underneath.
Palma · Son Vida · Puerto Andratx · Calvià · Pollença
The problem
I've walked through villas worth eight figures where turning on the terrace lights takes three attempts and a phone call to someone in Palma. The hardware is usually fine. It was just built for the installer's convenience, not the family's.
Lighting, climate, shading, music, gates, cameras. All of it in the app already on the phone in your pocket — and on your watch, your iPad and the HomePod in the kitchen.
Behind the scenes it's KNX or Lutron doing what it's always done. In front, a slider your guests can use without being taught, and scenes that follow the sun across the terrace.
The house knows you're arriving. Pool heated, floors warmed, shutters open, water on. You get off the plane and walk into a house that's been expecting you for six hours.
Cameras, gates and alarm in the same app, processed on-site rather than in someone else's cloud. Your property manager gets exactly the access you grant them, and not a bit more.
The approach
Apple Home alone isn't enough to run a large villa — anyone who tells you otherwise hasn't tried. So the professional systems stay. What changes is what your family touches.
Everything lands in Apple Home, on the iPhone in your pocket and the Watch on your wrist. Nothing new to learn, nothing to download, and it still works when a guest needs the lights at midnight.
KNX or Lutron for lighting and climate. Enterprise networking with wired backhaul. Home Assistant handling logic locally, so the house keeps working when the internet doesn't.
Every device inventoried, every firmware tracked, every certificate renewed before it expires. I came from enterprise Apple device management, where "it mostly works" was never an acceptable answer.
Room by room
Lighting that follows the sun down, music that fades as the last guest leaves, and shutters that close themselves at two in the morning.
A HomePod that answers, blinds on the west side that drop before the afternoon glare, and no switch plate with fourteen unlabelled buttons.
Cove lighting that dims to nothing rather than clicking off, and a goodnight scene that also locks the doors and drops the shutters.
Heated before you arrive, lit the moment you walk out, covered when the wind gets up. All of it without opening an app.
Presence sensing that lights the stair at 5% at three in the morning, and doesn't wake the house doing it.
Services
Half a day at the house. I test the network, map what's installed, find out what actually irritates you, and write it up properly — including what it would cost to put right.
€450 — credited against any work that follows
The most common job. Your existing systems stay in the walls; I bridge them into Apple Home, fix the network holding it all back, and take the wall tablets down.
Typically €4,000 – €15,000
New build or full renovation. I design the system, specify the cabling, and install it with my own electricians — then commission and document it as though someone else will inherit it. One day someone will.
From €25,000
An annual retainer so it stays working. Remote monitoring, updates handled before they break something, and the house checked and warmed up before you land.
Annual retainer — quoted per property
About
I spent years in enterprise Apple device management — keeping thousands of Macs and iPhones running for businesses and schools, where a device that "mostly works" is a support ticket and someone's bad day.
That world runs on inventory, documentation, staged updates and monitoring. Almost none of it has reached the luxury smart home market, which still installs by hand, commissions once, and walks away. It's why so many houses on this island contain expensive technology that quietly stopped working two years ago.
Orchard is what happens when you apply that discipline to a villa — and put an interface on top that a family will actually use.
A 700m² villa, three installers over six years, four systems that don't speak to each other. Nothing gets ripped out. The KNX stays, the lighting stays, the network is rebuilt, and everything surfaces in one place.
Pricing
Nobody in this market publishes prices. That isn't discretion, it's a negotiating position. Here's roughly what things cost.
Network testing, full inventory of what's installed, written report with costed options. Credited in full against any work that follows.
Existing systems bridged into Apple Home, network rebuilt, scenes designed around how you actually live, household trained on it.
Design fee, then installation with my electricians. A fixed project fee — not a percentage of spend, so there's no incentive to specify more than the house needs.
Support is an annual retainer, quoted per property after the survey. I don't take projects below €5,000 — below that you're better served by a good local electrician, and I'll point you to one.
| Project | My fee | Equipment | Typical total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Survey & report | €450 | — | €450 |
| Apartment retrofit | €1.5k – €3k | €1.5k – €5k | €3k – €8k |
| Apple Home migration | €2.5k – €6k | €1.5k – €9k | €4k – €15k |
| Villa, design & installation | €6k – €25k | €19k – €95k | €25k – €120k |
Equipment is what you spend on hardware, at cost — I hold no dealership and take no margin on it, which is why the two numbers are shown apart. See exactly what goes in the house, and what each part costs →
Who I work with
You want the house to be calm and to work without thinking about it. I translate between you and the technology, and never make you learn a system to operate your own home.
Book a survey →Bring me in before first fix. I work to your drawings, produce coordinated schedules, and don't touch an aesthetic decision without you. No surprise trunking, no tablet ruining a wall you spent months on.
Request the spec pack →Your owners keep asking for something simpler. I take that off your desk — a second opinion, a rescue, or support that means fewer calls to you.
Refer a client →Specified early, delivered on programme, documented at handover. A system that demonstrates beautifully in a viewing and doesn't generate two years of snagging.
Discuss a scheme →Journal
Everything I get asked on a survey, written down properly. No gated PDFs, no "contact us for pricing".
The two get pitched as rivals. They're not — one is the interface, the other is the engine. Here's how they fit together in a villa.
Real numbers for real houses — retrofit, migration and new build — and the four things that move the price most.
Metre-thick stone, one consumer router and 600m² of house. The most common fault on this island, and how it's properly fixed.
Technology
Apple Home is where you'll interact with the house. Behind it, whatever the house actually needs — chosen on merit, since I hold no dealership with any of them.
Orchard is an independent business, not affiliated with or endorsed by Apple Inc. Apple, Apple Home, HomeKit, HomePod, Apple TV and Siri are trademarks of Apple Inc.
Coverage
Based in Palma, working across Mallorca. If you're just outside, ask anyway.
Questions
Almost always, yes. KNX, Lutron, Sonos, most lighting and climate systems, and nearly anything with a local API can be bridged into Apple Home — usually with Home Assistant acting as translator. You keep the hardware already in your walls and gain one app your family actually knows how to use. More on Apple Home migration →
On its own, no — and anyone who tells you otherwise hasn't run one. That's exactly why the professional systems stay: KNX or Lutron for lighting and climate, proper networking underneath, Home Assistant handling complex logic locally. Apple Home is the interface, not the engine.
Most come off the wall. They're the single most common complaint in the houses I see — slow, dated, running software the manufacturer abandoned, and nobody in the family knows how to use them. An iPad or iPhone the household already owns does the job better, and a HomePod handles the rest by voice.
A survey and written report is €450, credited against any work that follows. A typical Apple Home migration including a network overhaul runs €4,000–€15,000. New design and installation starts around €25,000. Support is quoted per property.
Nine times out of ten it's the network, not the automation. Metre-thick stone walls, a consumer router asked to cover 600m², no wired backhaul between access points, and a saturated 2.4GHz band. Fixing the network properly resolves most "unreliable smart home" complaints I'm called about here.
Usually. Heritage protection and stone construction rule out heavy cabling, so the design leans on Thread and Matter devices, retrofit modules behind existing switches, and discreet mesh networking. The survey establishes what's genuinely possible before you spend anything.
No — consultation, documentation and support are all in English. For most German and Scandinavian owners on the island this isn't an issue, but it's better said plainly here than discovered on a call.
No, and I'd rather say so. I hold no manufacturer dealership and no partner badge — which also means no sales target to hit and no brand I'm obliged to put in your house. What I bring instead is years of managing Apple devices professionally at scale, and a survey process designed so you can judge the thinking before committing to anything.
Get in touch
Half a day at the house, €450 fixed, and an honest written view of what you've got and what it would take to make it right. Credited in full if you go ahead. No obligation if you don't.