Hello and good luck with your venture. I might have an idea for you!
I'm an electrical contractor in MN and I also like to do some low voltage installations. (years ago I was a low voltage contractor in Fargo, ND)
For example, from any computer connected to the web I'm able to control lights and appliances at my lakehome using X10. ALSO, I can unlock my front door, turn on my well, lake pump, water heater, thermostat and so on with another X10 interface. I carry my laptop with me so I don't have a computer at the lake and you don't need one on site to make this system work.
I bought this gizmo that has a built in web server and does the X10 thing also. I got mine from this site, "
www.iramp100.com". I am going to try to market these in MN...we'll see how it goes. So far I have had conversations with people that have seasonal property (lake homes) and they seem interested. It is so cool that I can unlock the front door for the plumber and leave my well and water heater off and the stat turned down until a few hours before we decide to go to the lake. IP cameras work great alonside this system.......
Dave