Up to £1,000

- Digital Plumbers’ home “hub”. This off-the-shelf cabled home-network system costs about £765, but you have to install it yourself. Standard cabling carries audio, video and data signals around the home for multi-room video, internet and phones. Digital Plumbers, 0870 850 1337, www.digitalplumbers.com

- A fully programmable touchscreen remote control for every device and room in your home. Try the Nevo, about £650, from Universal Electronics, 01279 501 111, www.armourhe.co.uk

- A four-camera CCTV system with digital recording that can be viewed over the internet from anywhere in the world. About £999 from CCTV UK, 08000 684 483, www.cctvukltd.biz

- A Helvar automated lighting system to control four different dimmable circuits — ideal for your main room. About £900 from Install Automation, 08708 550 010, www.installautomation.com

Up to £5,000

- Plasma television fireplace. Yes, that’s right, a working fireplace that contains a hidden plasma screen. From about £2,200, from Picture House, 01932 345 184, www.plasmafireplace.co.uk

- Loewe Individual Selection high definition-ready 40in LCD television. About £3,099, plus £499 for the floor-to-ceiling pole. Linnsight, 08000 276 465, www.loewe-uk.com

- Portable or wall-mounted touchscreens. The AMX Modero ViewPoint touchscreen control panel costs from about £3,285, from SMC, 020 7819 1700, www.smc-uk.com

- A TileVision bathroom television. The waterproof, remote-controlled set has a heated glass screen to keep the picture clear of condensation. Available as a 17in or 23in widescreen, it costs from about £1,060. TileVision, 0870 871 0111, www.porta.co.uk/maintv.html

Up to £15,000

- A very good projection home cinema could cost about £10,000, but for a well-priced projector, try LG Electronics’ AN110, which costs about £1,200 from LG, 0870 873 5454, www.lge.com

- A fully automated lighting system for a four-bedroom house — expect to pay from £8,000. Find a reputable installer on Cedia’s directory of members (www.cedia.co.uk). Lutron (www.lutron.com) and Helvar (www.helvar.com) manufacture complete lighting systems

- A distributed audio-video system for a four-bedroom house. These cost from £8,000; again, go through a reputable custom installer

Up to £50,000

- Based on a four-bedroom family home, for this budget you could have distributed audio and video, flat screens, automatically controlled mood lighting, and a comprehensive wired and wireless data network. “The number of rooms and the number of screens will make a difference, as will the quality of the equipment,” says Jane Scotland of custom-installation company Beyond the Invisible. A chunk of the budget could be allocated to one room, such as a home cinema, or spread more between security, such as CCTV and integrated door entry, or control of heating

Up to £100,000

- At this level, you can expect all of the above equipment, plus better control systems throughout the house. You can have touch panels in every room to allow you to have just one, integrated control setup for lighting, entertainment and heating. Expect a better home cinema and more comprehensive systems

£100,000 plus

- The sky’s the limit. You can afford full mood lighting (including an “all off” button and a holiday setting); adjustable heating with every room controlled separately; multi-room music off hard drive and DAB radio in every room (with wall-pad control and remote PC control); a full home cinema in the master bedroom with Yamaha sound projector (www.yamaha-uk.com) and a 32in LCD; plus a 50in 1080P plasma TV in the living room with a discreet 7.2 speaker system, which can be rigged as a home cinema. This sort of bespoke installation, including building work, would cost from £120,000; the equipment would cost about £75,000 on top of that.

Perhaps the ultimate indulgence is Candy & Candy’s Intelligent Mirror which contains a 50in plasma screen with a hidden camera in it. You can see not just your front view, but all angles of how you look by pressing a touch screen panel. It will even archive stills to create a catalogue of your outfits. Prices on application. Candy & Candy, 020 7594 4300, www.candyandcandy.com

Times recommends

• Second homes: credit crunch casualty or money-spinner?
• How I built my own sliding house
• Top 10 incentives for house buyers