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Electronic Gadget Ideas for a New House?
pmadden asks: "I'll be building a house this summer (standard straw bale construction, earth plaster, the whole low-tech gig). Naturally, I'll be putting gobs of ethernet in the walls, with drops to the rooms, on the roof, and so on. I'll add wireless too, once it's secure enough to keep all of you out. What gadgets should I plan for, so that I don't have to do a major retrofit? I'll have cables for TPZ cameras, for when they get super-cheap. We'll leave niches for putting in routers and stuff like that. What else? What cool thing will be cheap in a couple of years, leading my wife to ask, 'why didn't you plan for that'? Any recommendations for good Christmas light control systems, and so on?"
Wouldn't straw bale walls block wireless signals worse than normal walls? They are thick and are stuffed with organic material wrapped with chicken wire. This sounds like a recipe for bad reception...
How about leaving an empty conduit so you can snake additional cabling (Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre, etc) for future expansion. Everything leads down to a central location in the basement so that you set that up as the location where the server, TV (cable or satellite), telephone are centrally located.
Panic now, beat the rush!
As far as my suggestion, I say you should account for the possibility of having a small server room in your house. Such a room would should be easy to keep cool (basement?), fire resistant, and have some type of shielding from electromagnetic radiation (like thin sheet metal).
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
Some interesting ideas would be the following. Some of these products can be found at smarthome.com
Electric deadbolts. You could eventually link these puppies up to your computer and allow remote locking/unlocking of your house, possibly even remove the need of a key and use thumbprint identification instead.
Be sure to put some ethernet ports near your major appliances. Some future appliances are planning to have network integration to let you know when they need to be fixed or require attention. Best Buy already sells a fridge with a wireless internet tablet.
I'd also suggest putting fiber in at your important locations of data transfer. Your main office workstation, media center, etc. Also run wire for a 7.1 surround sound system, and if you want to add even more convience consider possibly installing a house wide audio system so you can pump music into each of your rooms.
Also, you should possibly consider investing in VoIP. Rather than having to put in another jack for telephone, you could run everything through your ethernet.
Consider your house's surroundings. You could install automated irrigation systems, lighting control, and as well as proximity gate/garage openers.
Be sure to invest into a good security system to make sure no one steals everything you just put your money into. A good low-tech solution would be owning a dog.
Keep in mind though, if you do plan to make an entirely large technologically saavy house, you should also install some house wide precautions. You should invest in a serious housewide surge protector/power conditioners. Perhaps even consider getting some sort of backup power supply incase of emergencies. In which case, you should also isolate your power outlets for critical systems that should run off the backup as well so you won't be wasting backup power on non-critical devices during power outages. Also take into account power saving devices, efficiency is good. Consider flourscent and low wattage lighting. Well setup HVAC systems will monitor your house's environment well and know how to properly adjust.
Your focus on gadgets is misplaced. You don't know what will come along. Instead focus on infrastructure. This means tv jacks in nearly every room, Gigabit ethernet in every room (maybe more than one per room), possibly fiber, and more. As for wireless, this can be added if and when you want if you already have the infrastructure in place. Also you may want to have a second set of infrastructure so you can use digital entertainment systems to send out digital content to any room in your house.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Consider Solar Hot water and Radiant heat.
If your utility charges US$.17/KWH or
more (PG&E customers with 2 * baseline
in Silicon Valley) consider solar electric
right away, otherwise put in the 600V
DC wires from the roof to the electric
meter for when the costs come down
enough to make it attractive.
I'd spend more time concentrating in efficiently heating and or cooling your house.
If you live someplace with cold winters...
Lots of well insulated south facing windows with eaves that overhang just the right amount so the windows are mostly in the shade from the eaves in the summer when the Sun is overheard but catch tons of sun in the winter when the Sun is lower on the horizon.
Then put remote controlled motors on the curtains so that they automaticly open and close for optimal heat in the winter(all closed at night and open to the east in the morning to the south midday and to the west in the afternoon) and for optimal light and minimal heat in the summer(close the curtains on the east windows in the morning and the west windows in the afternoon when the sun is shining in them, and then open them for light when the Sun isn't shining on them.
If the house is well insulated and you don't open the front door(or have a small entryway with two doors, to much you wont need much heat during the day in the winter. If you want to sink more money in to it you could probably bank some heat in water tanks or such and use them to keep the house warmer at night too.
Passive solar aside, do plenty of research and find a very good digital thermostat and efficient heating, air conditioning system. You also want to be able to program it so it automaticly minimizes energy consumption during times you are always out of the house(at work or school), or in bed, and warms up the house just before you get up or cools it down just before you get home from work in the summer.
@de_machina
When planning your house for the future, you need to have one corner in one room of the house designed to have _no_ electronic hookups at all. If possible, you should also make it into a wireless dead-spot. That way, when your future child (heck, even those might be electronic gadgets by then) needs some discipline, you can send them to the corner for an experience of life in the 20th century (also known as "back when I was your age"). On second thought, you should have as many as you plan on having children...
On a serious note, though... have you given thought to having one room without any hookups other than electric outlets? I have one room at my house that is my "escape" room. I don't have anything other than the room lights and a desk light in the room. I don't carry my cell-phone into the room. It is where I go to think, read books, practice playing music, etc... all free from the distractions of my gaming consoles by the TV, the new mail indicator flashing on the computer, etc.
Your mileage may vary, of course... but when your mother-in-law/father-in-law/mother/father/etc come for a visit, you would also have a room that would be somewhat "safe" to put them in... "safe" meaning that your house doesn't burn down when they try to figure out how to turn down the radio.
Takuryu
PS: You could help out the economy here and buy one of our fine, high-tech toilets.
Design your house so that you can add a solar power array. Dollars to doughnuts there will be some incentives for doing stuff like this in the future and it might even save you money in the long run. You can add a 2.6kW solar array for $23,000 as was done in Rochester NY recently, it works quite well. You can sell any excess power back to your utility and also check the status of your solar arrays online.
i am planning a house too, and i will put my bedroom in a faraday cage.
...
....
:) or be able to tell the tap if i want drinking cold or showering hot .....
.. well a motion detector that places a nice red dot on anyone entering the area would be cool too ...
...
cellphone signals, computer radiation, high/low voltage cabling radiation goes byebye...
if you plan it nicely you can still have your tv stuff there, just use a projector with mirrored image (back projection)
why? just think of your office, the phone in your pocket... the phones next to you
now you sleep 6-8 hours, at least have all the bad stuff shielded from you and your family - especially small kids
on the other hand i always wanted a sensor like in johnny mnemonic that tells me the water temperature when i open the tap
hmmm
more seriously: i really like the ideo of the house to be in different states depending on time and the number of people being home to automate lights (dicro filter is a nice touch for colour)/..
also temperature control depending on users
maybe have r2d2 bring my coffe or protein shake after my excercise
Whatever amounts or locations that you decide for any wiring (electrical, coax, cat3/5/6, speaker, fiber) install it in conduit. This gives you the ability to "upgrade" the wire in the future using the old as a pull wire for the new. Then in specific locations that you feel may need future capabilities (entertainment areas, computer areas, etc) add a second spare conduit with a pull string installed for potential expansion. One note, this can get VERY expensive so planning it to meet your budget while maximizing your flexibility is important. But, if you have the money, putting everything into conduit and have some spares in the walls can give you some peace of mind.
"Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats." --Howard Aike
Be sure to put a Cat5 drop in the garage where you expect to put an irrigation controller. See AccuWater.com for the latest in weather-based irrigation controllers. (Disclaimer: I'm the inventor).
CONDUIT! For the love of God, CONDUIT!
If you're really big on the idea of upgrading in the future, you seriously need conduit. It will save hours of your time in the future, as well as encourage you to do more upgrades! (Upgrade all my CAT-5 to CAT-5E, SURE! No prob!) Well, ok, so maybe it isn't quite that simple, but still, conduit will save you the hassle of drilling through walls, climbimg around in the attic and crawlspace.
Also, make a central patch panel somewhere in your house. If it's already built, put it in the garage where your cable and phone come in, if the house is still in the planning stages, create an MDF room! (Where you house all your patching, as well as your file server and MP3 server than can play any song to any room in the house.)
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
This topic has come up three times this week...
I've seen electricians use pipes for home wiring (and one underground conduit for a light-industrial location). When you put in a new wire you insert the wire in one end, and attach a vacuum cleaner on the other end and suck the new wire through.
I know very few people who have seen this system, including electricians. They think I'm crazy. But I swear I've seen it at least twice...
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
Today, you can get a lighting control system for any communication medium -- proprietary, ethernet, wireless. In my opinion, the wired ones are usually cheaper and more reliable than the wireless ones.
If you plan to put in a lighting control system -- since you are energy conscious or you like to be able to set the mood or you just like another gadget to play with -- it might be prudent to think ahead and wire the house for it.
(I know some people who claim that ethernet based dimmers work just fine, but in my installation at home, I prefer to know that the system will not collapse just because some Worm is utilizing 100% of the bandwidth on my LAN.)
Most proprietary systems require at least four conductors -- power, gnd, and two for 485 or like communications.
Along side your regular AC house wiring, you should run DC wiring. You could install a single transformer running at the highest DC voltage you wish to supply, then install voltage dividers at each wall outlet, so that you can select the voltage you want at point of use.
What does this mean? NO MORE WALL WARTS! Also, you'll save quite a bit of power because the wall warts are very inefficient and burn power (1-5 watts) even when nothing is plugged into them. In a modern (esp. geek) house, those multiple small loads running 24/7 add up really fast.
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun