Home Automation

I have found that many homes wired to code fail to have outlets, etc. located where they are most useful. It used to be that you had to have an outlet within 3 feet of a door and every 10 feet after that. Too many outlets end up behind the middle of the couch or bed and not in the best place for access after furniture is in place. Do your best to envision furniture and countertops and their placement and use. Both ends of the couch, both sides of a bed, etc.. Also, don't put too many outlets on an single circuit in a kitchen or shop area.

This is one of the more succinct summary from 2021. Just update some tech (e.g. Cat 6A vs Cat 6). https://youtu.be/wnac20HPlR0?si=I5Jyq0Xl3jM81RlL

If you are a two story house, plan on a wiring space in the basement to run everything too.

Near there have a few conduits run to the attic from the basement. You will need to plug them with firestop but it makes it so easy to add wires to the attic or upstairs.

Typically near the air return is a decent downstairs to upstairs path

If you are not a fan of wireless, two drops to each spot you think you will need it, and then two to the opposite side of the room

Why cat5e? I was under the impression that the cost difference between cat5e and cat6 was negligible nowadays, but maybe someone will comment on that

CAT6E CMR STP CMR so you're future proofed....

It's really not much more than standard CAT6 and so much better long term...

Do cat6, sold copper, shielded

22/4 - I've found it useful at time to have spare wire pairs at sensor locations. Also be sure to get pure copper, my 12yo copper coated aluminum wire is corroding where its used near aluminum window frames. ( bad monoprice batch years ago? )
Specify exactly where you want the sensors to be; remember doors are framed w.pretty solid headers etc. in some cases I use Micron Ion plunge sensors and a wireless setup on our ElkM1

2 Cats so you don't have to deploy a switch. AC power near cats so you can deploy a switch.

Cat up high where you might want your security cameras. cost no object? overlap field of views. use Axis products. run extra Cat for POE IR floods.

Cat to crawlspaces for sensors.

Review your planned security systems keypad needs. may be Cat cable with a serial protocal, so more Cat5

Lots of power in your head end. ventilation in your head end. I have an exterior exhaust fan on a shelly for this.

Plan out a place for a robot mop with water line and drain line hook ups. Switchbot just released a robot mop earlier this year that will go to a water station to get clean water and drain waste water. The water station is placed near a sink. It would be good to design a place for both robot mop and robot vacuum. See link below. I’m modifying my remodeling project as I just found out about this idea. Not exactly pre wire but pre plumb.

https://www.youtube.com/live/TCtceJ7rfiI?si=B74yb0JFp8wnMAZg

If I had it to do over, I would put 2 Ethernet drops on every wall of living space but the bathrooms. And pull strings in every drop. (Conduit to hard ones) You will want a "computer room" for the network stuff, but also NAS, DVR, smart home hub, and more as the needs grow. Dedicated circuit an a place to mound a business class rack mount UPS. (2200 or better) And speaking of power, you should add more than you need. And leave room for monitoring it in the box. If your panel is in the garage, a shelf for another switch may be handy. I have a switch in my house, my detached garage, and my shed...

Do you have a multi room speaker setup already, maybe wireless through sonos, homepods or similar? If you do and never use the multiroom feature, then wiring up for speakers in each room will be similarly unused IMO.

smart water shutoff valves. If money were no object, more than one in "zones."

places to plug in/mount home control panels (like the ipad ones a lot of us use)

smart fan/light combos or fans.. smart can lights or other built in overheads should be easily controllable and/or compatible with the Lutron switches.

humidity sensors in the bathrooms that you can use to control fans

non-wireless internet connectivity (at least give yourself an option) in every room, at least for the TV/Streaming services area.

If I had it all over to do again, I'd put multiple outlets for cat6 (shielded) in each room and each outlet would have a minimum of 2-4 jacks.

Cat6, especially shielded, can be used for more than ethernet.

Cat5e for motion/presence sensors if you plan any.

Put a switch in your garage for the front soffits if you might want holiday or decorative lights.

Put power in the attic for OTA TV antenna and maybe even AM/FM radio antenna. Run cabling for them to each of the rooms you might want those services.

I just did speaker and cat 6 all over. Cat 6 to ever corner of house, every room has four outlet, and every corner of the house has two runs.

In addition to everything summed up elsewhere, run some low voltage wire to the ceilings above where you're going to put beds and couches, and to the bathroom/toilet closets for mmWave presence detectors.

I would run cables for contact to inside doors as well. I use sensors on closet doors, laundry room etc and get so tired of changing batteries! If they were wired I could just sense open close from something.

Agreed with others having one place all cables are run to (Ethernet, contact etc) makes management much easier. But label label label

internet cable everyroom

hdmi from pc to tv

Definitely need a few CAT 6 runs to TV location’s in each room. So you can stream on smart TV’s.

Have 22/4 run to corners of rooms for motion detectors, perhaps 22/4 ceiling drops for glass breakage sensors too

16/4 for speakers at a minimum. 14/4 if you have runs more than like 75’. Loop at one speaker then jump to the next. Do not cut the loop.

Cat6 everywhere. Don’t even mess with cat5e, just run cat6 to TVs, “touch panels”, closets ceilings for wifi, mechanical room, garage, etc.

Pull CAT6 to all TV locations, multiple lines for possible future devices. Wire is cheap, it gets more expensive to pull after the drywall is up.

Cat6AFTP everywhere. Dont 5e

Run power by the shower so you can get one of those fancy showers with the wall panel some day.

Don't overlook running conduit, you can always pull wire as your needs or technology changes. Your area and or building code may restrict the product you can use. PVC is easy to work with. Another product which is cheap and easy is smurf tube, I believe the official name is Electrical non-metalic tubing?? Either may not be good in a area with cold temperatures. I actually never liked it for power wiring. Any pre-wiring can make all the difference in future-proofing you house, it's certain your internet will be fiber, maybe the same for audio and entertainment, and security systems systems. Even pipes run under a driveway AND recorded on your blueprint can make lighting and irrigation less of a project.

I networked my house back in 2005. If I did it again, I'd double, if not triple the amount of CAT5 in each room, and I thought I did a lot!

If I had my time again, all CATx cable would be armoured and shielded. I'd also route fibre to main rooms and break out with a managed switch in each area. I'd fibre to my main TV/AV area, my office, to my WiFi mesh system, the kitchen and the log cabin. I've jury rigged it for my office and WiFi.

I put power in a lot of places, including high up for equipment, but I didn't install enough. You'll never do enough. Also don't allow the electricians to pull/patch the networking, they don't really get it. I'd especially put power up by the windows so I could put in powered blinds/curtains easily. Power outside too.

I would make sure all light switches had a neutral and all wall sockets and light switches had deep (60mm) boxes. I might go for a star design rather than ring main so I could put automation in the fuse box.

I put coax in throughout, but haven't really used it except for DAB radio, probably wouldn't bother with it putting more CAT5 in instead.

My security cameras and devices are all wireless and battery operated, so they don't count.

All power sockets, everywhere, should also have USB sockets and have in-built home automation, eg z-wave or zigbee. Put the smarts in the sockets/light switch, not in th bulb.

Make sure you main network switch is easily available and make sure you can house other devices like a NAS close to the main switch. I have a 48port main switch with 4 fibre connections and half a dozen managed switches throughout the rest of the house. I have two broadband connections (Virgin and Plusnet) coming into a Draytek router with failover.

Hubitat is my home automation of choice.

don't forget about the outside:

• cat6 for cameras, doorbell(s), exterior WAPs, etc
• 16/4 for exterior speakers.

inside run cat6 to anywhere you might put a tv.

consider prewiring for projector / in wall speakers/ subwoofer etc if you have a home theater type area. or even just for living room tv, wire everthing to a nearby closet if you want a simple wire free tv setup

i also ran cat6 to a wall or two in almost every room for potential future use

If money was no object, maybe conduit going from every room to a central place so you can easily run whatever you want in the future.

I would not do cat 5. Do something faster. The tech will catch up.

Not electrical but plumbing - put in an access for a robotic vacuum filling and rinse station either in the kitchen or in a bathroom. Only one vacuum has this so far but my bet is that this will be standard very soon.

A waterbottle filling station - either separate from or at the sink. Make it easy to fill all those water bottles your kids will use at school.

If your kitchen and garage are next to each other, a couple of chutes for recycling - I've always wondered why more homes didn't have something like this. Also under counter recycling bins and garbage bin that slide in and out. Oh and nice spice racks in the cupboards. These two are my fave additions from when we renovated.

A cold storage area - invaluable!

Power outlets in your exterior eaves/porch (if you have one). I’m having to consider how to add for holiday lights.

Cat6 to each tv location. Not only for internets but also if you wanted long runs for hdmis

Our place is only 2200sq ft on one level. The only thing I’m struggling with is speakers for the lounge / kitchen as it’s vaulted. But here’s my list which is the same as everyone else’s:

• cat6a to each room, specific rooms have more.
• 24U rack in mechanical room for patch panel, switch, fibre modem, NVR, etc.
• Cat6 drops to each location of security cameras
• 3 cat6 drops for APs including one at the back of the house/back yard for external
• Lutron Caseta switches
• Cat6 to front door for doorbell
• all exterior lighting switch on wife’s side of bed
• flush outlets on backsplash
• 200A panel in house, 200A in garage.
• conduit from mechanical room to front and rear property lines for electrical and cat6. Think Christmas lights around the yard etc.
• soffit receptacles even tho below
• soffit LEDs programmable
• 14/4 to windows for alarm
• 14/2 to windows for blinds

Ethernet at not so visible spots to place wifi access points.

Get Cat7! Also, lots of smaller speakers (ceiling/wall) are much better than a couple big ones. Also, run conduit pipes so you can easily add wires/ things in the future!

Cat 6 and fiber uplinks

Run Smurf tubing. Basically PVC pipe so you can pull the any new wires in when they get dates

Outlet boxes as close to every window as code allows for Christmas lights, put a smart outlet in each.

GFCI outlets outside under the soffits, and a smart switch (consider breaking into zones if you do incandescent bulbs or otherwise go full-Griswold to keep under the watts the switch is rated for) and hide the switch inside a coat closet.

Unless your home is very compact, it would be VERY wise to wire your home speakers with 14/2 twisted pair.

The only thing I would add that isn’t already being said is to have wires ran to the exterior of the house for good outside lighting on the side of the house, garage, and backyard. (My house has almost no exterior lighting and it’s pathetic).

Whole-home vacuum systems are really nice and would be a nightmare to retrofit.

Just a shit ton of cat6 everywhere. It’s the only cable that matters anymore.

Low voltage LED floor washers in all baseboard wired to photocell to switch on when lights are off, on a UPS.

SurgeEX whole house non-destructable surge protection.

Install 6 to 8, 8-foot, copper-clad grounding rods to reduce grounding circuit impedance to a minimum. It makes electrocution far less possible and it makes audio gear really quiet and happy.

Run two, twenty-amp circuits for each audio and theater rooms for 40 amps, total.

Double the number of outlets above kitchen counters.

Double the number of outlets for bathroom counters.

Run CAT7 2.5-10GB ethernet cable for ALL WIRED CONNECTIONS BY ROOM TVs and media/theater/audio locations. 2.5GB ethernet WILL BE THE STANDARD SPEED. 2.5GB switch prices and 2.5GB ethernet now standard on almost all computers for sale in 2024, MAC and PC.

16/2 for speakers. 2 CAT6 and a coax for each TV location, also a 1 1/4" mini duct. Any outdoor cameras, TV locations, speaker locations. 2 doorbell runs, 1 to transformer for a traditional , 9ne directly to your headend for POE. Waps, data, doors/windows, shades, glass breaks, daisy chained smoke hard lined to the security system.

Ethernet for POE video doorbell, ceiling AP, desk/TV’s in rooms.

For CAT5e make sure it’s copper (not CCA). And that it’s rated 2.5gbps for up to ~128ft(?). Trucable is a solid vendor on specs. But if you have the money do CAT6A or even fiber to really future proof.

Nothing. I would surface mount everything.

Always a pair of Ethernet, never one. Every other wall in most rooms and all walls in some rooms. Can be used for IR and speakers.

Hdmi cables to a central server. Network cables to each TV and and additionalone for the room. Speaker wire for living room and out side speakers. Security cam runs.

Are people still running speaker wire from each room to a central location? I figure that would have been replaced by streaming by now. Apple Airplay, Chromecast, Sonos, Roon, etc. all allow synchronized multiroom audio over IP. I've been using Bang and Olufsen's Multiroom since 2015 and can't imagine running speaker wires. (But I would run CAT5e or CAT6 Ethernet everywhere for sure!)

Fiber parallel to CAT6