Recently
Mr. Zeng from Foshan reported
that after installing a whole-house smart home project
he encountered issues such as construction delays and constant equipment failures
which severely affected his daily life
Spending nearly 300,000 on a whole-house smart homeResident: Smart has become “dumb”
Speaking of the expensive whole-house smart home project, Mr. Zeng has a lot of “grievances”, “It’s not smart anymore, it’s already ‘dumb’,the smart devices are almost paralyzed and useless, I can only use physical switches.”
In October 2023, Mr. Zeng signed a “Smart Home Engineering Construction and Maintenance Contract” with the Foshan agent of ORVIBO, Guangdong Chenshi Technology Co., Ltd.,with a contract amount of 156,800 yuan, covering the scope of“installation, debugging, and after-sales service of smart home devices”.
After signing the first contract, Mr. Zeng paid 150,000 yuan and agreed to pay the remaining balance after project acceptance. In November 2024, both parties signed a second contract, which mainly covered the scope of “installation and debugging services for lighting fixtures such as light strips and downlights”, andnoted that all lighting fixtures were at a 45% discount, Mr. Zeng paid another 88,000 yuan. He thought that after the smooth payment, the project would proceed as agreed, but reality was disappointing.
Mr. Zeng:
Initially, it was agreed that the installation would be completed by the end of 2024, but the other party kept delaying, no one came over, and it was only in early 2025 that a group of people was arranged to come for installation. In March, they urged me for payment, and at that time, there were some minor increases in construction, but my first contract had some minor reductions. After some discussions, I paid an additional 30,000 yuan, but many things have not been installed. I moved in on April 30, and the products have not been fully installed, let alone debugged.
So far,Mr. Zeng has paid a total of 268,000 yuan, but since the project construction began, the agreed 5-day construction period has been repeatedly delayed, and equipment issues have emerged one after another, such as varying degrees of problems with access control and door locks, and unstable network and AP conditions, which continue to occur. After multiple communications and debugging, there are still unresolved issues.
“Several times our air conditioning and lights turned on by themselves, and we didn’t know.” On August 21, Mr. Zeng also tested some of the product functions in front of the reporter,experiencing intermittent failures of the sensor light strips, slow response of the panels, cross-wiring, and offline status of the controlled lighting fixtures, even the light strips showed black and white spots..
Contractor’s Response: Owner Owes Final PaymentHas the right to stop services
The reporter saw in the “Project Acceptance” section of the contract,“Acceptance standards and content include: installation flatness, precision, and debugging of smart scenes, etc., and the final payment must be settled within three months after acceptance”. Mr. Zeng stated that it is currently impossible to accept.
Mr. Zeng:
They kept urging me to pay and sign the acceptance contract, but these things have not met the acceptance standards. How can I sign the acceptance contract? Everything must be usable to meet the acceptance standards, right?
The reporter then called Mr. Long, who signed the contract with Mr. Zeng, and he stated that it was because Mr. Zeng still owed project payments.
Mr. Long from Guangdong Chenshi Technology Co., Ltd.
If you don’t pay, we also have the right to stop services.
Reporter:
How much does Mr. Zeng owe?
Mr. Long from Guangdong Chenshi Technology Co., Ltd.
According to our calculations, there is approximately 60,000 to 80,000 yuan owed.
Reporter:
Mr. Zeng mentioned that there are many faults in the whole-house smart home,what is the situation?
Mr. Long from Guangdong Chenshi Technology Co., Ltd.
If the problems are caused by our installation, we have gone to handle them.If it’s a product issue, we can only assist him in communicating with the manufacturer. We installed and debugged the products and delivered them to him. He has also lived in for three months, and now says this doesn’t work and that doesn’t work. If there were really problems with the installation, how could he have moved in?
Lawyer Advisory Team of the Municipal Consumer CouncilLawyers remind:When signing renovation contracts, be sure to clarify these details
It is understood that after the dispute arose,both parties jointly calculated the final quantity and price of the products installed in Mr. Zeng’s home under the witness of a third party, with a total price of about 430,000 yuan. However, Mr. Zeng stated that this was the price before discounts, and at the time of signing the contract, the other party promised there would be discounts. After actual calculations, including the additional construction parts, he only owed about 20,000 yuan in final payment.
Since the prices for the additional projects during construction were not clearly stated in the contract.Currently, both parties still cannot reach an agreement on the final payment price.
Lawyer Xie Chuan from the Foshan Consumer Council’s lawyer advisory team analyzedthat the current disagreement between both parties on whether the acceptance conditions have been met should not be defined by “whether they have moved in”, but should refer to the contract stipulations and whether the basic functional requirements of the smart home have been met for acceptance.
Due to the particularity of renovation contracts, it is recommended that residents pay attention to clearly listing the renovation period, renovation content, and corresponding unit prices of the renovation projects in the contract when signing.Because of the particularity of renovations, there are often some additions and reductions, and the contract should also stipulate the calculation standards, basis, and final settlement methods for these additions and reductions..