Home Automation

None of my IoT has an internet connection. I suppose that makes it a NoT.

I use the spoke and star topology in my home. Hardwired CAT5/6 to each main room and switches there. Most have a PC + TV with ethernet ports.

The bedroom CAT5 is provided by the Office netdoor. This was cheaper than running both (or all) rooms to the hallway.

If you are going DIY eco-system don't ruin the flexibility by focusing yourself on a single platform like HA. HA is no longer generic, it's pretty opinionated and bespoke these days. It can afford that as many people produce compatible firmware for HA.

Start with something lower level like MQTT as your core data architecture. HA will consume that fine, but it will give you more options.

Another suggestion. Power monitoring smart plugs (Tasmota or ESPHome) these will allow you to monitor and manage your "device clusters" such as shutting down all the standby power in the living room from a switch beside the light switch.

I don't use IoT, I use zwave so power budgets are small. Wireless sensors get a cr123 battery that lasts a year or more.

PoE is an option for things like shades/blinds. Alternately you can get those AV-style recessed wall boxes that have 110 outlets that you put a cover over, though you need to plan for a large enough valence to conceal it or some architectural detail.

If you are building a house from scratch, do it right.

Put a room in the basement and call that the IT room. Run Cat6 from everywhere to that room. Every room, everywhere you might have a phone, TV, computer, etc. All of it gets at least one cat6 run. Many runs get more than one cable- anywhere you might have a computer put 2x cat6, anywhere you might have a TV put one Cat6 and one Cat7 (for HDbaseT (HDMI over CatX)). Run a Cat6 to anywhere you'll want a smart device, including things like window blinds.

Have your builder terminate these in patch panels, ideally in fairly deep wall mount racks, spaced with 24 per 1.75" 'rack unit' and one open unit between each two patch panels.

Thus, if you buy 48 port switches you can easily run PoE ethernet to every port in the house and it'll look really slick like this.

Consider a hardwired alarm to do hardwired alarm things. A Honeywell/Resideo Vista 20 alarm and an Envisalink will get you tons of sensors, and hardwired contact sensors in doors/windows are always better. Find a LOCAL INDEPENDENT alarm company, tell them you want an alarm installed but you are an automation nerd and need the installer codes after installation. Not all will want to work with you in this regard. Find one who will. Or say you'll hire them for the physical install but just want to buy hardware and installation and have no need for monitored alarm service.

That all said- all of this is way more expensive than a couple of $180 Ubiquiti 6 Pro access points and the 3-4 cat6 runs to feed them.

Everything in my prewire guide. 👀

Don't run cat wire, run conduit in the walls. In 20 years you might want to fish something completely different. Put conduit to every room and every thing you think might need it and you can EASILY put whatever low voltage you want through.

For your electrical, just do all 4 conductor instead of 3. Someday you might want it and it's a modest increase in cost. Run 10g where you require 12, run 12g where you require 14. You waste less electricity in the walls losing less to heat.

No, you shouldn't run 1 wire to a room and a little pocket switch for each room. That's an IT nightmare. Have a closet with homeruns. Have all your POE on ONE switch and you can have a battery backup on it, you can MANAGE your devices there. Pocket switches are last resort in any deployment as an afterthought, not a forethought.

You're gonna eventually "saturate your house with wireless" Just plan now around a few good accesspoints.

It's all going to move to matter and thread in the next few years if they can get the spec together but you should design around flexibility.

I'm also building a new home soon and plan to run so much ethernet (Cat6A) I'm going to need more patch panels than you can buy in a bundle.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hPYCpzZD_SbznEdpzGgHPffenE-BOR1PEJNOphP3o-c/edit?usp=sharing

Over 100 runs on that list for a 3/2/Office house. The overall themes are:

• 4 runs to the TV nook
• double runs to at least two jacks in every room
• double runs to every corner of the home exterior (poe cameras)
• runs to walls in the garage
• runs to every door and window opening (either remote ESP devices with POE power, or to just use the cable as a dumb carrier for contact sensors)
• runs to every room for "sensing" (presence, ir, mmwave, temp, lux, etc) device
• several runs around the house for WiFi mesh coverage
• runs to the home entrance doors for "doorbell cameras" (or the equivalent) -- again, potentially just as dry contact wires too
• runs to various monitoring points (water heater, HVAC, electrical panels, and water meter even!)

And, as other's have mentioned, conduit/smurftube galore. In a new build, when you have the chance, it's an absolute no-brainer to run all of this while the walls are off and insulation is not interfering. I'm trying to have as few things wireless as possible because wires are simply faster, more reliable, and easier to troubleshoot.

I, personally, will not go the "switch in wall" route as that adds a bandwidth bottlenecks and creates extra stuff to manage all over the house. Plus devices that will eventually fail you've got to pull out of the wall now.

If you can - run conduit in the walls, as then it's super easy to pull different cables whenever you need them.

I would personally avoid doing a switch per room and instead do multiple CAT5/6/7 drops per room that all route back to a central rack / router somewhere. It's much easier to manage centrally and gives you a lot more flexibility as and when higher bandwidth stuff comes along.

If your budget can stretch to it, really recommend the Ubiquiti range of networking gear, the POE switches are super reasonable and will massively reduce the number of power bricks you have to have around - you can find POE versions of most HA stuff these days !!

I would actually consider skipping the light switches entirely.

My dream home would have drop ceilings and raised floors. Imagine the convenience of "I want a device there" and one swing of the drill later, there it is. Fucked up? Just throw in a new tile idgaf.

I adore your shot mate

This seems to be an unpopular opinion because there's always people jumping in talking about running wire all over the house....but...wireless is the future.

I have around 100 smart devices in my house and they are all wireless. Mostly ZigBee and Zwave with a few wifi devices mixed in. I struggle to see many reasons to need a wired data connection outside of your network closet.