The best bits of our 2025

Following the Epitome Living 2025 Christmas party, we’ve been looking back on the year just passed. 

Every year brings its own challenges and opportunities for growth for small businesses, and 2025 was certainly no different in that regard.

A saying I call to mind often when thinking about the vision for Epitome Living is ‘most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years’. 

I don’t often take the time to take stock of our accomplishments, but since Epitome Living is nearing ten-years-old, now seems like the perfect time to start.

Here are some of our best bits of 2025. 

Turning beautiful houses into smart homes all over Ireland. 

Epitome Living was founded to enhance people's lives at home. It’s a privilege to still be doing that in 2025. 

We’ve worked on some excellent smart homes this year with architects and interior designers who are at the very top of their game. They’ve not only brought our clients' dreams to life with window placements, textures and finishes, but created space for us to design and install technology that brings out the best in their work. 

The end products have been magic, combining the skills of multiple trades to create automated spaces that allow people to live exactly how they want to. 

One of our proudest achievements from 2025 is working on the second project from a client we started working with in 2022, which also happens to be our highest value residential project yet. We’re clearly doing something right. 

As I always say, technology isn't the end in itself for us when it comes to smart homes, it's the means to an end that gives our clients back time in their day, gets their energy usage under control, and encourages them to live the lives they want to without technology getting in the way. 

Lakeland Energy Home from 2024

Meeting hundreds of potential clients at self building shows in NI and ROI.

You can’t build smart homes without winning clients, and this year we had one of our most successful years for leads at the Selfbuild Extend & Renovate show for Ulster. 

It was humbling to hear that people from all over the country came to the show in Lisburn specifically to speak to us about home automation or home cinema projects. There’s nothing quite like poring over paper plans on a small table in a busy exhibition centre, or chatting to people who’ve been stopped in their tracks by our stand.

We’ll be back in Dublin for the Leinster show in February, so please do come say hello if you’re building, extending or renovating in 2026. 

Selfbuild Extend & Renovate show at the Eikon Centre in Lisburn

Becoming members of the NI Chamber of Commerce and attending our first events.

Networking doesn’t come naturally to most people - myself included - so becoming part of a body that could help us meet the right people, in the right places, was a no brainer for us this year. 

Since joining NI Chamber in the summer we’ve attended the Festival of Business, chatted to potential buyers of our tech at a Meet the Buyer event, and listened to talks on AI, branding, tendering, and more. 

We’ve only just dipped our toe in the water with our membership, so we’re looking forward to making more connections with the network in 2026 and beyond. 

NI Chamber Festival of Business 2025

Celebrating five years at Epitome Living for both Richard and Jordan, and having Amy join us. 

In 2017 Epitome Living was just me. One of my first projects was installing a security system at a farm near my house, and at that stage, I couldn’t even fathom that I’d one day have a team around me working on high-end residential projects. 

We’ve come a long way since I was climbing through muck to keep cows safe (as important as that work was, I’m glad we’re not there anymore!). 

Both Richard and Jordan started working with Epitome Living on a freelance basis, but soon demand reached a stage where it was feasible to employ first Jordan and then Richard full-time. I’m so pleased to still have them on the team and to be watching them grow in their careers here and make Epitome Living what it is.

We also hired Amy as our marketing and communications department this year. That’s why you see more words and pictures from us now! I’m looking forward to developing our communications strategy with her in 2026 and am slowly getting over how weird it is to see my face in the newspaper.

At some stage we may win more work that requires climbing through muck (or widening our agricultural automation tech scope further than cameras), and you needn’t worry, we’re still as game for that as we were in 2017 (Richard particularly!). Will 2026 be the year of the full-farm smart tech fitout?

A happy man with sight of his cows!

Diversifying our smart tech offerings and expanding into new markets.

The bread and butter of what we do is high-end residential projects, but the systems we design can do far more than first meets the eye.

This year we’ve focused on sharing more about our commercial projects, talking about how intelligent technology systems can benefit groups of people like hoteliers, restauranters, facilities managers, and business owners.

Our research took us to HIX in London this year to learn what goes into creating luxury hotel experiences, and we were encouraged to hear that everything we stand for is being considered by people in hospitality: technology that supports the human rather than steals their thunder. 

Next year we’ll also be continuing to focus on growing our presence in the Republic of Ireland and continuing conversations with education boards and hospitality experts about how our technology can improve their spaces. I’m pleased to have organisations like Invest NI and Intertrade Ireland on our side as we take these next steps. 

2025 case study Warmflow

It really has been a good year. 

If you’ll be working on a project that could benefit from building automation and smart technology in the new year, please don’t be a stranger. If you’re not sure what smart technology could do for you, it’s worth a conversation to make sure you’re not missing out.

Our goal is, and will always be, to simplify lives with seamlessly elegant technology installations. Here’s to making more lives easier in 2026!