Why we charge $29 a month (and what happens if you don’t)

People ask, fairly: “I already paid for the installation. Why is there a monthly fee?”

Fair question. Here is the honest answer.

What the fee is not

It is not a software licence. The app works without it. It is not a lock-in — you can cancel any time and keep using the local system.

What the fee actually is

It is somebody watching.

A C-Bus system is thirty to a hundred electronic modules, each with a power supply, each aging. Failures are gradual: a module drops from 33.8 V to 32.4 V over eight months, then one day a light does not come on and nobody knows why.

The daily check catches that drift while it is still cheap. We see the reading, we call you, we book a visit with the part already known and the serial number already on the ticket.

The comparison that matters

Without monitoring, the sequence is: light fails → you notice in a week → you call someone → they come without parts → they order → they come back. Two to four weeks, two call-outs, and a room you avoid.

With monitoring: we call you before it fails. One visit, part in hand.

What it costs versus what it saves

$29 a month adds up over a year. One emergency call-out plus a second visit to fit the part usually exceeds that, before you count the fortnight of a dark hallway.

The higher tiers add trend history, an annual report and priority attendance — worth it for larger houses and for anyone who rents the property out.

The honest bit

If you never have a fault, the monthly fee is money you would rather not have spent. That is true of all insurance.

But the reason we built the plan is not revenue. It is that the alternative — a system with nobody responsible — is precisely how C-Bus got its bad reputation in Melbourne. We would rather be the phone number that answers.

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