Post-handover change: moving a spotlight to unblock a camera

23 Dec 2025 | #housing | #japan | #tech

We just finished building our house in Tokyo with Ichijo and had the handover at the end of October. After moving in we found a problem: the view of one of the security camera was partially blocked by a spotlight installed right under it.

The problem

At the front of the house we added a motion activated spotlight and a security camera, with the camera on the top and the spotlight below:

However both us and the architect missed that the camera is super wide angle, so the spotlight was blocking the camera’s view. Moreover at night the camera’s built-in light was reflected from the spotlight making the issue even worse.

The solution

I emailed our Ichijo contact and asked if it would be possible to move the camera to the side. I was a bit worried that they will say no, since we asked for the camera and spotlight to be in the current position, and we signed off on the designs, but I also felt that the architect should have known that the camera is wide angle (Ichijo only supports this single type of security camera from Panasonic, so it’s not like we chose something unique). In the end Ichijo fixed it for free without issues, so one more point to them for the great service.

Ichijo called us to arrange the date, and a contractor came to our house on that day. I originally asked to move the camera, but the guy said that the camera has power and ethernet, so how about moving the spotlight instead? I agreed, so he got to work and moved it within a few hours. He brought new wall-tiles with him, since the tiles often break when being removed (he told me this when I asked).

Once completed, there was no sign that would indicate that it wasn’t like this originally.

I don’t know how indicative this is to the general Ichijo post-handover support, but I really liked that they fixed this issue promptly and without any back-and-forth on who’s fault it was. Experiences like this makes me want to recommend them more.