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New Home Automation?
An anonymous reader writes "Ok, fellow geeks... I have the luxury of finally building my dream home from scratch. It's going to be good sized (~4000 sq ft over 3 levels), and rather than run around at night to make sure my lights are off, doors are locked, garage is closed, etc, I really want to put in a home automation system. Since the walls aren't up, this is the time for complete flexibility as to my options. The last time I did a whole house, it was years ago, X10. Since then, lots of other protocols, both 'proprietary' and more general (like WiFi) have come on the market for devices — all better than what I've worked with in the past. What do you all have experience with and recommend as reliable, secure, and fairly easy to use? Something with a good chance for long term availability of parts and features would be a bonus."
Place thin wall plastic conduit, as big a diameter as you can fit, within the walls between rooms in anticipation of whatever future technology you might have to route through there.
Why in the fuck does anyone need a 4000 sq ft house? I don't care if you can afford it, why do you need a bathroom larger than most peoples homes?
Z-Wave is the only one that you want to have. Insteon is not very reliable, being dependent on power lines for signaling (at low baud rate, to make things worse) and nothing else can compare to these two.
Z-Wave is entirely RF-based and requires no wiring. However make sure you have plenty of Ethernet everywhere because you will want to have Ethernet-connected sensors such as the power meter, the solar inverter, and a bunch more - plan for those ahead of time.
Plan also for video cameras for security and Ethernet cables to them for IP (or coaxial cables if you pick analog cameras.) You will need entry/exit keypad controllers to operate things (don't know what kind of property you got.) Basically, plan everything before they are done with framing. Make sure all wires are in steel conduits, so that they are protected from Mickey Mouse. You will need live + neutral + protective ground everywhere.
Make sure you run everything, Coax, Cat5/6, Lighting Electrical, Alarms, etc. to a single Telco Closet, or one on each floor.
The biggest problem is usually having to run or rerun wires after construction do to poor planning.
Also put at least one Ethernet jack in every room. Wireless is subject to interference from neighbors, other 2.4 & 5 ghz devices, etc. plus you get use them for video, audio, etc. in the future if necessary.
That is where I would start, that way if you find later that you overlooked something, or decide to change some automation devices you will have the flexibility to do so.
I like the Bayweb Thermostats, it is easy to manage multiple HVAC units, which you will certainly have with a house that size.
I've fallen, and I can't get up! [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQlpDiXPZHQ ]
Boy, I'm old.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with all your metadata.
Ever lived in a house with a built-in intercom? Find yourself using it? Don't feel bad. No one else does, either.
For long-term value, try to resist the urge to automate it today. Lasting value will come from routing high quality, shielded cables both for data and power to multiple outlets in every room as well as creating strong rooms and creating lots of easily accessible, strong mount points where you can install things you'd like to automate with whatever the latest and greatest tech is. They might be mounts for motors for pulleys for shades or mount points for light fixtures or for a robotic arm that changes your baby's diapers or a landing pad for flying bot that fetches you snacks from the kitchen. The thing is, tech is changing *so* ridiculously fast now, that no matter what you choose today, it's going to be not only obsolete in no time, but in all probability some kind of maintenance and even security liability later.
If you design those mount points in to look attractive instead of like nubs of unfinished 2x4, that's going to be the real art of making a house that a hacker can thrive in but that can improve continuously over time and that can be of value to someone in the market for a house 10-20 years later. Goes without saying, but removable wall panels are also a great way to make a house far more maintainable into the future.
It's what I'm starting to use and it's pretty good so far. Door locks, window/door sensors, thermostats, motion sensors, lights, outlets, dimmers, etc. Pretty handy so far. Scripting with LUUP (a LUA like language) is pretty simple, and you can get it to play pretty easily with other whole-house solutions (like SONOS).
For example, when I get home, I can use my cell phone to open the garage door, turn on the garage light, the hallway light, the family room light, turn on the tea maker, and fire up SONOS to the Pandora station of my choice. At night, I can issue a single "time to sleep" command and the house locks itself up, sets lights/temperatures appropriately, and I'm set.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I recommend using Red Cloud for Entry Control, it is absolutely reliable, feature rich and has excellent support.
Keys are a big inconvenience, plus it's nice to give keys to neighbors, house guests, relatives, etc and be able to specify dates, times, etc. for access as well as being able to deactivate a key whenever you want.
You can control all the doors with a Smart phone, in fact you can use your phone as the key, by holding it up to the reader.
I have to disagree. I have a huge Insteon system and find it to be totally reliable. Actually, the larger the system the more reliable it is as every unit acts as a repeater and thus, the more units you have the more robust the system is.
I'd suggest Google Nest!
I have 2 strands of Cat-5e into every room [I use one for 2 telephone lines], a strand of coax and 4 "2-gang" electrical sockets in each room, one on each wall. Try to put the RJ-45, RJ-15 and coax away from the wall with the window or heater. Most likely not where you will put the TV or computer.
Tell the electrician you want each strand to be an "end run" with no splices. Have them all terminate in a room ["the nerve center"] that is not the boiler room nor contains electrical panels, but preferably where your telephone, fiber and cable come into the house. My good friend was the electrician and cut me a real deal.
Label each of the strands coming into the nerve center and your patch panel and then use a gigabit switch and/or wireless throughout.
Cost me a fortune 15 years ago. Still works great. With wireless phones, cell phones and wi/fi, none of it was so vital.
Someone wrote with the idea for conduit between rooms in the walls for future wiring. I like it. Aircraft carriers are built that way.
One non-automation note: radiant floor heat. Best investment in the house I ever made.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with all your metadata.
How can you afford two houses in ten years? That's what I want to know. Technical work doesn't pay that well in my experience.
Creston and control4. Crestron has been around for years. Control4 has been around for about ten.
I would concur on running Ethernet. Lots of it. I personally like running conduits for all home run circuits. Smurf (ent) works well for this.
I highly recommend you check out CocoonTech.com, especially the forums, as there are thousands of folks who have done this, and can bring you up to speed pretty quick. There is also a guide on the site (Wiring your home 101) which will tell you what wires you should run assuming budget isn't an issue (this lets you pick and chose what wire really matters to you).
You have so many options, it really depends on the time you are willing to put in, budget, and features you want.
I recommend you use an Elk M1 or HAI Omni Pro II security/automation panel as the 'core' of your system if security is really important to you, or if automation is your main vice, then look at the SmartThings, Vera, ISY-99, and HomeTroller (Zee) hardware controllers.
Most of us top this installation off with a software component, so we can bridge/interface many protocols and technologies (this way you aren't stuck with just one solution). Most popular commercial software solutions are Homeseer and CQC, but there are many alternatives, free, open source, etc.
Currently, Z-Wave, INSTEON, UPB, ZigBee, and WeMo are the popular protocols.
If you have the budget, consider hardwiring your home automation light switches, as the wireless/powerline based solutions aren't perfect, plus you have to worry about latency/security. CentraLite, Crestron and Lutron RadioRA are popular commercial solutions. They usually require dealer/installer access, but if you really look around, you could get access to the hardware (I'd probably combine RadioRA with a HAI/ELK panel).
There is so much more to tell, so if you have any other questions, ask away, and don't forget to check out the CocoonTech home automation forums!
If your building from scratch, then design your homes wiring in a structured manner. Consider having twisted pair runs around the house for touchpanels or switchpanels (RS485 is still the greatest automation protocol since sliced cheese IMHO) with that and power connections coming back to small hideable racks around the joint. Have Cat5 and Fibre ports around the house, and perhaps instead of messing around with home handyman junk like X10, consider using high end gear like the AMX's and Crestrons of the world. Not actually expensive if you snarf all that stuff off ebay!
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Make sure you run everything, Coax, Cat5/6, Lighting Electrical, Alarms, etc. to a single Telco Closet, or one on each floor.
The biggest problem is usually having to run or rerun wires after construction do to poor planning.
Also put at least one Ethernet jack in every room. Wireless is subject to interference from neighbors, other 2.4 & 5 ghz devices, etc. plus you get use them for video, audio, etc. in the future if necessary.
Don't use cat5. HDbaseT needs at least cat5e. Personally I use unshielded cat6 as HDbaseT should be much worse with shielded cables (yeah I'm doing something similar right now). Just remember NOT to place network cables near power cables as 50/60 Hz noise can cause problems. Also power lines tend to have high frequency noise from switch mode PSUs, killing network signals.
With the price difference between cat5 and cat6, there is no question what to pick before you set up floors/walls etc.
Full disclosure: I work there.
We just launched a hub that supports Z-Wave, Insteon, and a number of IP devices (over WiFi, including a certain recent Google acquisition...), with another 4 radios that can be turned on in the future (including ZigBee, which should come online in the next couple of months). revolv.com
I have a similar layout, around 3,800 sq feet on three levels. Z-Wave is indeed a solid recommendation to build the individual items on. GE's Jasc products (in wall outlets, in wall switches, adapter outlets are pretty good, I've got a bunch and I've yet to have an issue. Amazon usually has decent prices but be VERY careful about what switches you buy as three and four-way switches are not wired like you'd expect as one will be a normal switch and the others simply send a signal to that outlet - very different from traditional wiring. For the hub, you'll want to evaluate what type of features you want. Do you want internet or smart phone connected (you probably do) - in which case take a look at SmartThings or Mi Casa Verde. The problem I've run into however is that if you want to tinker, not all products play well with other products. You can't use SmartThings to control Phillips Hue light bulbs for example - instead you have to integrate the bulbs into IFTTT.com's web service and then trigger them via the web via actions in SmartThings. Totally does work, but it adds a small amount of latency. When you flip a switch, you really do expect instant results and that 1/2 to 1 second is perceivable. Another question is security, do you want open/close sensors on your doors and windows? Now is the time to wire it if you can and the wiring is thin and cheap. The z-wave wireless sensors you buy work, but do you really want to swap out batteries on a house that size? Plus, they seem unreasonably priced by my standard. Wired ones are 1/3 the going rate and are much more failure resistant. You'll of course want ethernet around for your normal PCs, but make sure to add in a good location for wireless routers and put a few jacks where you'd want video cameras, even if you don't want to install them right now. Cable is cheap, rewiring isn't. Also, while Z-Wave products create their own mesh networks, the hubs that translate from Z-Wave to WiFi or ethernet need to have a good connection for them to work well. I find that I have to buy an extended range model to cover the house, but my location isn't ideal. That said, depending on your building materials you might need a repeater or two so an extra jack is a godsend when you need it. Keep in mind, you'll need a switch closet somewhere if you put a jack in each room. I ended up with 14 jacks coming into a bedroom simply due to poor planning regarding where the cable drop for internet ended up. I really should have put that in an actual wiring closest or something but too much was already dry walled before I got involved. Schlage makes good door locks by the way. Tried a couple before ended up with them. PINs are so much easier to manage when I need someone to dogsit. Audio: do you want centralized music/media controls? If so, it's easy now and a PITA later. Wireless exists, but latency is always an issue and SONOS is damned expensive.
run cat5e or cat6 everywhere you possibly can, back to a central location/ closet. I ran one from every lightswitch in the house back to the "nerve centre" , and I have an SSR behind each lightswitch. so the cablig is thus: lightswitch is connected to cat5e cable, not mains, and switches very-low-voltage (5v nominal ). the other end of the very-low-voltage connects to a digitalInput() on the arduino mega ( or whatever 5v tolerent microcontroller with plenty of I/O that you prefer ) , and then the arduino mega drives another pin as a digitalOutput() , which is wired back through the same Cat5e ( on a different pair) , and it switches on/off the SSR ( Solid State Relay) , which is "in the wall" behind the lightswitch, and the other side of the SSR is connected to the "mains" where the lightswitch originally was. This is extremely flexible because: :-) :-)
1 - if you physically jumper the two pins for the digitalInput and the digitalOutput , then you don't need to program the microcontroller at all, and the jumper acts just like a nomal lightswitch.
2 - you can make one switch do many lights the same way ( connect all the digitalOutput()s together with a wire, and connect them to just one "digitalInput(). no microcontroller programming needed ( unless you prefer it).
3 - anything else that you want to do that's "more powerful" ( like using a switch to control multiple devices, or using special toggle sequences to mean "all lights off" , can be programmed in the microcontroller pretty easily.
4 - it uses "stock" mains wiring, so no special mains configuration is needed, and it's quite suitable to a retro-fit too.
Wait a year until Google's purchase, announced today, of a company that makes household products like thermostats starts to bring new products to market.
Then, you can have your house turned into one of the tendrils of the Panopticon. Won't that be fun?
You are welcome on my lawn.
I don't think the "luxury" of being able to turn off lights while pinching a loaf can replace the peace of mind of quality construction.
CocoonTech is the forum for this questions, if you have experience with X10, take a look at UPB.
If you are going from scratch, every switch gets a cat5 cable. Wire in your security sensors. Wire in snakeable conduit everywhere else. Especially on your exterior walls. You will want a cable chase that goes from the attic to the basement.
Plan ahead and wire everything you can, then use the z-wave to hit everything you forgot to.
You don't want anything proprietary or limited to only one technical solution. Think about it. Your house is going to stay around for a few decades (At least I hope so for you). Look at the technology that was available in the 70, 80, 90 or even last decade. Would you want to be stuck with those proprietary part and not able to upgrade at all ? I don't think you would !
Also be aware that all this proprietary home automation technology have pretty weak security at this stage. None of them have anything close to robust asymmetrical encryption to start up with. ZWave has one key to rules them all... but at least they have one. I can only encourage you to either take the bumpy road of open source software that need contribution and a growing community (I know a french one http://calaos.fr that is pretty outstanding, but sadly no english translation support yet) or try to stick with the logic that you want to be able to replace everything in 10 years from now...
oh, never mind just hand the house keys to Google
One thing I wish our house had more of is outdoor electrical outlets. You never know when you will need them for gardening tools or holiday decorations. Having them switched is even better, especially if you do a lot of holiday decorating.
Control4 is a awesome home automation system with a universal remote and apps for iOS and android. As for lighting run the standard romex to the switch box then install their wireless zigbee switch/dimmer... All kinds of great features... Check it out at www.control4.com
If you are planning on using carpet. I would highly recommend central vacuum, it gets carpets a lot cleaner and is very easy to use. 2+ outlets(Or inlets if you will) for most room, So you can have more flexibility arranging for room. Avoid the we can't put the credenza there because it will block the central vacuum. I am also planning on having small vacuum pump system with small tubing that makes the cat litter boxes into negative pressure areas. Going to test this out by running tubing on the ground where am living first though. It also needs to be very quite or the cats might just find a new places to relieve themselves. As far as very thing else goes. Run lots of plastic or Metal conduit with easy access through the attic and/or basement. I am running a finished basement with commercial style ceilings.(Wife wouldn't allow painted open ceiling) Also, if your in colder climate heated floors are a real money saver and just all around great feature.
Zigbee's the best option for home automation ecosystem. Zero-conf mesh networking for great range even through walls/floors, and lower power so all these devices don't bust your electricity bill. And if your utility installs a smart meter with home-area networking, it'll probably be Zigbee, so smart appliances can get usage and price data from there.
So you clicked on one of those popup ads? HEATHEN! BURN HIM AT THE STAKE
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
To deliver beer, sugar or caffeine to you.
I know it's old tech, but you could probably do something absolutely geekish with the implementation.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Since you have the grand opportunity to design your house before it's built, you want to use the best home automation protocol available. Hard wiring to every room with the RS-485, RS-422, TIA-485-A family is the best long-term bet. This will always work now and in the future. It won't be affected by obsolescence, RF interference, or electromagnetic interference.
You can extend your house later with the toy protocols later like Zwave, INSTEON, Zigbee, Bluetooth 4.0/Smart/WiBree, or whatever. For the core home automation where reliability is required, like lights, doors, alarms, sensors, you should use ANSI/TIA/EIA-485. The wires will be the same as your ethernet in case you ever change your mind, but if you design it right, you won't need to.
You rarely see any theaters, hotels, or shopping malls using anything else but ANSI/TIA/EIA-485.
Kriston
I did a huge amount of research on what system to go for when I was looking at doing the same.
The final result was that KNX represents the best system to go for. It is the only open standard meaning you have many many manufactures (as opposed to CBUS) it integrates with pc systems allowing you to do 100% customisable setups and its wiring is simple.
You have to run a seperate cable to every device you control but given you are building this is easy. The cable can support (off the top of my head) 128 devices on one cable. Each device is individually addressed and the on/off status is reported back meaning you can still use manual style switches with no problems.
As others have mentioned make sure you data wire your house as well while you are there but this is a different question.
Expect however to spend $20k+ if you are going lights, access, hvac, sensors, etc. If you want to keep your costs low during the build period run the cable where ever it is needed and add the devices later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KNX_(standard)
Consider Lutron stuff as well. They've got killer products for lighting and shades.
I like these guys. They support all devices from Zwave to zigbee to future uPNP. They said that they will be adding more stuff.
Conduit. You never know what might be invented or standardized tomorrow and render your cabling obsolete.
My job is actually programming home and business A/V and environment control systems for a living. While it won't be the cheapest option, if you want the best, go with one of the 2 biggest and most reputable manufacturers out there: Crestron Electronics -or- AMX. These are the systems that the big luxury homes/mansions get. Crestron -> http://www.crestron.com/ AMX -> http://www.amx.com/ Both manufacturers make wide assortment of proprietary touch panels, keypads, and central control processors for every possible scenario. Both are networkable, and can control anything that is IP / Serial / IR / Relay / or Voltage controllable. They are completely customizable, and do just about anything you want them to do. Each program that is written for these are usually unique to the system and clients desires of what they want. The downside to these options, is they don't come pre-programmed, and you can't get your hands on the delevopment suite without being a dealer. The reason is, these are not just setup/configured like other options out there, they are complete embedded platforms that require programming to get them to do things. Same with the touch screen interfaces, you actually have to design/build the GUI front end, and can make it look and work how ever you want. The other advantage, is they can work and control anything you want to throw at them, but they also make lines of audio/video devices that are suited to doing things like whole-home audio distribution, or whole-home video distribution. They make everything from their own pre-amps, surround sound devices, to HD video matrix routers for routing sources around the house. For the best of the best, these two manufacturers are the cream of the crop. (notice: I do not work for either of these two manufacturers, but I have programmed both of them for 14 years, and run my own programming contract business by providing programming for these system. )
This helps future-proof the house.
I'd also consider/ensure the following:
1) Make sure there is a NEUTRAL at EVERY electrical box, including switches. Makes things lots easier. I've also gotten in the habit of using an additional conductor from the lightswitch to the light in case I decide to install a fan or similar.
2) Have the electrical contractor use the biggest box that will fit in the wall space. None of these cheap 2" deep things. 22 cubic inches is the size for a single gang box. They are roughly 3.5" deep (the width of a 2x4 wall stud). This is to accomodate the much larger volume of a home-automation switch and/or outlet.
3) Consider truss construction in spaces you'll have to run lots of wires through - it solves the issue with too many holes weakening the structure.
4) Take the advice of others on the thread, and do go ahead and install boxes with conduits on at least each wall. The conduits should be at least 3/4" - 1" would be better. If you've got a dropped ceiling or similar, they just need to be stubbed out into the ceiling/attic area. If you're enclosing, then they need to be run to a central closet or similar.
5) Don't forget satellite, cameras, etc. etc. etc. - run boxes/conduits for them as well.
6) In bedrooms, think about where the bed might be placed and make sure you have outlets on both sides of each bed position. In the master, if you know where the bed is going to be placed, consider adding nightstand height switches and/or boxes for automation controllers, cell chargers, etc.
I probably could keep coming up with other ideas, but that are the main ones...
robots don't like stairs
As far as radio technology goes, having Zwave is going to provide the best device ecosystem with reasonable stability in the market. You've got a wide array of appliance devices (outlets, lamps, thermostats, locks, garage door openers) that already use it. When you consider that newer home automation, the products are usually built on things like WiFi and bluetooth (cameras, hue lights, Nest, WeMo, mother,etc) .
There are several commercial solutions on the market, but my /opinion/ is that the Staples Connect is the best out there. It has the largest current ecosystem of devices over Zwave, WiFi, Zigbee and Lutron's proprietary ClearConnect (whatever their system is to control their shades/blinds). Also, they seem to be churning out new support quickly like Insteon and other seemingly interesting things like Jawbone UP integration, twitter integration. Of course, it isn't particularly hackable yet, but it does support a pretty reasonable Activity model for setting up behaviors.
full disclosure: i bought the staples connect hub and am pretty happy with it thus far. I've had to call in for support a little bit but after figuring it out, feel like its actually pretty good. I imagine it will get better as it gets more developed.
Just got mine delivered a few weeks ago with products from Bticino (http://www.bticino.com/).
They provide services such as:
- Temperature adjustment (2 zones, from floor heating)
- Light control (individual/all)
- Window shutters control (individual/all)
- Instant power readings (light and regular)
- Power consumption graphs/stats
- RJ45 plugs compatible with phone/internet with space reserved for your internet box
- Heating/cooling scenarios
- Reachable via smartphone app
As an unexpected bonus, all light switch have small LEDs embedded -- green when in use, orange when off. It makes it easier to find them in the complete dark.
So far it's been working quite well. You can easily monitor your power consumption patterns and adjust it to catch the high/low cost periods of the electricity provider.
Dennis. It's your father. Your mother got a call from a lady named Lea Samson, about your penis? We're all kinda concerned.
Our offer to pay for the corrective surgery still stands: accidents during circumcision are reversible.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with all your metadata.
If you have a 4k sq ft house, you're a douche. It's not a house, its a tacky underbuilt mcmansion.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Ok, I may take some flack from everyone on this, but I'm not going to suggest more wiring in the walls, etc. etc. Instead, I would suggest, if you have the option, to consider earth sheltered concrete. Properly designed, you can minimize heating and/or cooling load on the structure, potentially eliminating the need for gas/oil/electric furnace all together.
That said, once you've got your basic structure, feel free to load it up with all the wires, wireless, automation, and other toys you like.
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
People really put in a lot of money to save people. Automation in it's current state aint gonna save you a dime (especially lights and crap) and cause a lot of headaches when it comes time to fix. Especially light switches where the ~$1 switches are damn reliable tech.
I have all sort of low tech solutions, but for lighting, I recommend fixtures that take a normal A19 edison bulb. People always want to put in fancy flurorescent lights (not CFLs, just the odd shaped pieces) but the bulbs are always more expensive and never advance. With the standard A19, you can be assured of being able to buy the latest and highest variety tech. If you like track lights, you can buy A19 track light fixtures as well pretty cheap if you look around that look fine (as low as $5 ebay sales new, $7-9 normal)
Then buy 60w Cree light bulbs at Home Depot, they are the best and with subsidies, they cost $8 a piece in my area (down from $13 unsubsidized).
Unlike CFLs, they are instant on, use a few watts less electricity, and look normal. And the 2700k watt variety should attract less bugs (no ultraviolet emmittage) but that shouldn't be conflated with no bugs.
I installed lights, noticed the reflectors were less than optimal in ceiling lights and outdoor lights, that the 60w just wasn't strong enough, used a hightech item from the supermarket known as aluminum foil, placed it strategically and hidden from normal view and was able to get more light than 100w equivalent (23w) CFLs or 100w incandescent. My kitchen went from 256 watts fluorescent tubes to 76w ceiling lights (mostly because the tubes were typically places in center of the room trying to light be sheer power whereas the ceiling lights were placed accordingly). My living room went from 69 watt CFLs to 28.5w cree leds with the same lighting just because of aluminum foil.
My greater point is that aluminum foil and other simple stuff is much more reliable than fancy gadgets that turn things off every once in a while
You can also consider light switch motion detectors, but they too are expensive but at least it's a single point of failure and can be replaced with a standard switch should things go wrong.
The only tech I would really use is a good thermostat.
Talking about that, if you have any interest in solar and the like, look into David W. Allan's home in Colorado, situated 6000 ft high, that uses only solar passive heating.
http://www.naturalbuildingblog.com/david-w-allans-solar-home/
I find the Trombe wall:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trombe_wall
Solarium with ducts, and eutetic salts concept fascinating.
They pretty much adhere to the KISS concept, which is what I recommend overall.
I have just completed my own "whole home" automation system on a complete remodel of about 4000 sq ft of living space.
Not sure how similar your house is, but we have: four home theatre systems, 8 additional sets of additional Sonos-controlled speakers throughout the house and yard, 80+ lights in / outside the house (excluding bathrooms and closets which we decided to exclude),two thermostats and AC/heater systems, security system, etc.
Our requirement was to integrate with all of the lights, the AV systems, control audio in any room, integrate video cameras, and generally use the system to control thermostats / temp sensors, electric shades, sunlights / solatubes, outdoor heaters, the garage door, ADP security system (which in-turn controls the doors locks), etc.
The most significant constraint was that my wife has to be able to use the system - so smartphone-based control systems could not be the primary control system.
After significant protocol, technology, and product evaluation; product selection; sourcing; and implementation, this is what we learned: .
- Hard-wired systems are significantly longer lasting and more secure than RF based system. RF is great for remodel / add-ons, but not preferred for new installs by any vendor I evaluated (but you won't find this in writing).
- For any product that does need to have wireless controls, the cost of having multiple protocol support is really negligible to the cost of the overall system.
- We ended buying a products from a bigger vendor (we ended up evaluating AMX, Crestron, Control4, Luttron, and Savant), these bigger vendors have a long standing history showing their support for most or all of the protocols and technologies. They also have better warranties, are supported by more local support contractor, and their products have upgrade paths and life cycles consistent with larger vendors.
- The sytems come to come in two flavors - vendors that have mostly closed system or vendors that are built to integrate with other vendors products. There is a difference in cost, complexity, and ease of use.
- Finding the right electrician with experience in home automation was more difficult that we anticipated; the wiring configuration is considerably different that with normal housing builds. We have tens of thousands of feet of wiring . . .
- Understanding the amount of space required in the electrical panels (I have 3+ 6ft pannels) and your network closet; we ended up using about 3x what we originally anticipated in regards to space. This is exacerbated if you are going to centrally located AV receivers, DVD players, etc.
- Understand your use of POE devices (i.e. wall mounted LCD panels), video cameras, other devices. POE switches require more power and limit the use of fan-less ethernet switches.
- One of the largest costs for us was putting in "smart switches" in all of the house (minus bathrooms and closets); they tend to cost about 100x the standard light switch ($200 vs $2). But the backlight switches can be programmed to do anything; the etching with the light / audio system "name" (i.e. living room, dining room, etc) has been really important to the "non-technical" residents of the house
- I'm spending about $7.5 / sq ft on the pre-electrical wiring and another $12 / sq ft on the home automation system.
- There were a few things that couldn't be controlled - such as the automated opening/closing of the sunlights.
- Defining the right "groups" or collections of devices to control tended to be more difficult than we anticipated. An example was that some of the outdoor lights shined into different parts of the house where we didn't want them to, so we needed to pull them out the of group.
- When you can control "everything" - you end up having huge numbers of options on how to configure the system. It can be a little overwhelming.
- We found we needed the automation programming experts to come back several times after the system is installed to refine the setup, build out the screens on the four
I'm going to be flamed to death for this, but if it doesn't have to be DIY, why not just hire it done and not reinvent the wheel?
It's a "dream house," right? So presumptively this stuff doesn't have to happen for free.
Find yourself a competent Crestron (or similar) installer and programmer. Sit down with them and discuss what your hopes and dreams about home automation. And then let them do it. Get them involved earlier instead of later, so they can coordinate with the other trades on the job.
A well-planned Crestron system can do just about anything. Push one button, dim the lights, close the blinds (if daylight), drop the screen, fire up the projector, set up the AV gear properly, and await your next command? And have it work exactly the same way, every single time? That stuff is -easy- with Crestron.
It sure ain't free, and it's not DIY, but it does actually work...
Kid-proof tablet..
Copper wire mesh - to keep the radio signals out.
I've nearly gone as far as I can automating systems and devices my current home - temperature & humidity sensing in most rooms, motion sensing in every room, zoned ducted evaporative aircon, a couple of split reverse cycle aircons, z-wave lighting and exhaust fans, and mains power monitoring.
-- Lighting ---
Z-Wave works mostly well enough, and I use this to automatically turn on lights when motion is detected, turn off lights after a while with no motion, or turn off when I go to bed. Unfortunately the turn-on the signal can take up to several seconds on a large 1-wire network, so even when the motion sensor triggers quickly you can still be halfway across a room before the lights turn on which is a pain. On top of that, I cant disable the z-wave dimmer soft-on and soft-off feature which is a pain when you're trying to get quick response. For the turn off, it's probably not worth it since I upgraded to LED lights as the power saved is negligible.
At the price of parts + install being $150 - $200 per light fixture it's not really been worth. A few minor conveniences and a lot of annoyances. I think I'd be better off with no automation on most regular light fixtures, and just some inline z-wave switches on frestanding lamps and mood lighting. Maybe automation on the living room and master bedroom for convenience / scenes.
-- Temperature / Humidity ---
Temperature and humidity sensing in every room has been great. In Australia where I live it's quite uncommon to have a whole house climate control system, so I've used these to help come up with a automated strategy for every room that integrates the available air conditioning systems. Also I've used the temperature, humidity and (calculated) air speed in each room to create a "feels like" temperature. Controlling against this rather than the dry air temp has given a much better result.
I've been using 1-wire devices as sensors, which need 1 or 2 twisted pairs for comms and power - cat5 is great. The DS18B20 temperature sensors are very cheap, have been very reliable and can send signals over long distances. Unfortunately the DS2438 based humidity sensors are not as good and I've had to partition the network a 1-Wire hub. Currently I still have intermittent errors with just 30m of cable on each DS2438 leg, whereas the DS18B20 temperature sensors could cope with a load of 100m plus. If I was building a new house I'm not sure if I'd use them again due to the issues with humidity sensing, but I'm not convinced there's many other affordable alternatives either. For reference the DS18B20 sensors are costing me about $2 each, and the DS2438 based humidity sensors (using a Honeywell humidity IC) are about $20 each from parts. Since I work as a control engineer, my next preferred option would be modbus slave devices over RS485.
-- Air conditioning ---
For the split reverse cycle aircons I used a central GlobalCache IP2IR infrared blaster, and then ran long wires with a concealed IR emmitter fitted inside the aircon head units. This works fine but the IR programming for air conditioners is painful. I wish there was an automation interface standard for them.
For the ducted aircon I had to integrate the zone controller using an arduino for digital IO, communicating back to the central server via RS232 serial (over cat5). I upgraded the fan to use a VFD (variable frequency drive) and this can be controlled directly over RS485 using MODBUS RTU.
-- Conclusion --
If I had my chance again I'd probably just run multiple cat5e or cat6 to every room
- 2 to 4 at floor level for computers and TV's
- 1 or 2 behind the light switches for potential CBUS or other wired lighting control systems. These would be wired to a seperate patch panel
- 1 or 2 behind a wall mounted sensor enclosure - this could then have both a temp/humidity sensor and IR emitter fitted. These would also be wired to a seperate patch panel
Ideally I wouldnt run any mains power to wall light switches - all of t
If my staff were so absent mindedly leaving so many lights on and doors unlocked that I had to consider installing a home automation system, I would begin by replacing the butler. He really ought to be doing a better job of keeping the help under control.
Now Google can wire that information directly to the NSA.
In my first house, I put in coax everywhere for 10BASE2 to be on the cutting edge. It was cool until copper came out.
In my second house, I put in CAT5 everywhere for 100BASE-T to really future-proof the wiring. Then fibre was the rage.
In my third house, I put in fibre everywhere for ATM and wasted a lot of money. Did I say I wasted a lot of money?
In my fourth house, I put in CAT6 everywhere for 1000BASE-T since it should also do 10GBASE-T. But my runs were longer than 55 meters.
In my fifth house, I said, #%!% it, and didn't wire anything. It became a ghost house where if I pick up my wireless phone, my Wi-Fi connection dropped, my Wi-Fi cameras went nuts, and my Wi-Fi controlled lights flipped randomly. It was great for Halloween.
Movin's a bitch.
Actually, manufacturers of HDBaseT extenders, such as Key Digital DO reccomend shielded cat6. PROPERLY shielded (with shielded termination) is ALWAYS preferable to unshielded, although for most residential applications (including HDBaseT and networking) you can use unshielded just fine. As you pointed out though, care must be taken to maintain distance from 120v or other electric lines...and if you HAVE to cross an electric line, do it perpendicular.
Time to repost an eerily prescient article from the L.A. Times, way back in 1993, about smart homes.
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
I did mine with Clipsal C-Bus, not cheap but works really well. It integrates with Clipsal Star-Serve for AV and runs wirelessly or with Cat-5 (they recommend using pink cat-5 for identification as standard).
As well as the C-Bus, I also ran cat-6 data, coax and AV to each room, all served by a cabinet in the garage. All in separate conduits, with extra pull wires.
One tip though; don't expect it to add to the resale value of your home if you have a complex system for lighting. Many buyers will see that as a potential future liability. Be sure to run standard light switching circuits as well.
Don't use wireless, if you have the luxury to build it form scratch, have everything hardwired with a forward looking attitude (so fiber).
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I've always been curious... when the cat5/6 is running twisted pairs why do you need the shielding again?
Wow, X10, that's ancient. Everybody's using X11 nowadays! While it no longer automates lights, doors, heating or well... anything, really, it's absolutely killer for window management. You can do anything with them, even look at the window remotely! Isn't technology fantastic?
Just don't press Ctrl+Alt+Backspace. I heard it's bad for the space-time continuum.
You could do it for cheap via Arduino circuit board and go full throttle, put the lights, heating and independent thermostat in every room and outside posting temp stats online for live monitoring. It's possible to go all out for not much if you're all about the DIY kind of way. All of it being opensource too.
Having just gone through a multi-day power failure due to an ice storm (Toronto), I suggest that you put a little thought into what you might need if you had a long term power outage. You don't say where you are, but in a lot of places, it can get awfully cold without power. If you live in a winter climate, I suggest that you have a "warm room"; a room within the house where even the interior walls are insulated. That room should have a properly vented and working fireplace or wood stove, and/or gas heating, and be large enough for the entire family to sack out in sleeping bags. Having a backup generator is also a good idea. Multiple exits on different sides of the house are a good idea, in case your front door gets a two inch thick coating of ice on it, and you can't get out.
I'm not saying be a prepper, but a few precautions while the house is in the planning stages could save your life, or at least make a tough situation more tolerable.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
http://www.digital-loggers.com/lpc.html
I love these guys. They aren't an "integrated solution" or anything, but they can turn eight sockets on and off in response to GET requests, run scripts, do time-related things, auto-power-cycle on failed ping... It's dead easy to slap together custom web pages/apps to trigger them. I use Siri to turn my lamps on and off alone or in clusters. "Turn off the bedside lamps", "turn off the foot lamp", "make it dark", "let there be light." The flexibility is what makes it fun. If I had your money, and had Ethernet next to every outlet, I'd have a hundred of them.
Do you have a budget for home automation? I have done them for $20K to 250K, so that gives you an idea of where to start. 20K would get you a centralized sonos system, 250K would get you the full wammy Savant system....There are many players in the middle ground, my favorite being Elan.
- Do you want to centralize and distribute video?
- Do you want touch screens wall mounted in various locations
- What do you want to integrate? Your choices being: Lighting, garage doors, pool, video, whole house audio, whole house video, thermostats, alarm/security, video security, doors, refrigeration, fire alarms, window treatments (auto blinds), solar monitoring, car charging (For EV's or plugins), and even biometric sensors.
The biometric sensors are pretty cool, your music, video and environmental preferences can follow you room to room in real time.
DON'T:
-DON'T skimp on the wiring! It's the cheapest thing to do and is nearly impossible to add more after-the-fact
-DON'T use split loom for long halls, it just doesn't work
-DON'T forget to run a short piece of split loom (1.25" min) from every possible wall mounted TV location down to normal floor plate level for things like a Wii or xbox sensor or a local Blu-ray player.
-DON'T run any low voltage wiring within 1ft (3ft is better) of electrical....otherwise you will have noise issues on the LV. (1 90degree cross is ok)
-DON'T use shielded cable unless you want to waste money and most installers don't know how to install it properly anyway.
-DON'T try to do the integration part yourself unless you are a serious tech and am willing to spend 10-15X the amount of time a pro integrator would take.
-DON'T use fiber optics, not only it the equipment VERY expensive, but the cables are fragile and difficult to install without damaging them.
DO:
-DO use aluminum U channels you can get for a couple bucks each from your telco supply place...Define your routes with them prior to pulling any wire.
-DO use a pro integrator, unless you are just doing audio and network
-DO work closely with the electrician, otherwise he will use all your routes and you won't be able to do a good noise free install...I usually like to install U brackets for the HV in advance and mark them with a color for the electrician to use. But you will have to work closely with him.
There is a lot more, but I am tired....going home.
If you want to control your lights remotely, consider using dual-coil magnetic-latching relays at (or for) each light socket. If you use low-voltage coils, run control wiring back to a utility closet and use your computer/controller/PIC I/O for control. Momentary-contact switches wired in parallel on the control lines allow control from anywhere you want to put a switch. And if you use low-voltage controls you don't need to use special precautions with the wiring.
A rotary switch in the master bedroom can connect a control switch to any relay at will. Or put it anywhere else. It could also be used as an input to the microcontroller -- your choice, depends on how you want to do the programming.
When I did the same thing for a house I had stripped down to bare studs it was a year or two before cat 5 wiring became the norm. So the house has a lot of cat 3 wiring in the walls, but no cat5. What I discovered and wish I had used is flexible non-metallic conduit. In 100ft rolls is it about 35-40 cents a foot. Run it to every location you might want Ethernet or cable. Run a cat 5 cable there as well. This allows you to run other types of wire as needed pulling it with an electrical fish tape. Check that the installers do not kink the flexible conduit. The other thing you might think about is running Ethernet to more locations than you think you need. Where you aren't going to use it immediately just leave it in the wall and install a blank outlet cover.
Have you thought of in the wall wiring for speakers? This takes some forethought because you have to figure out where the A/V system will be and where the speakers will be.
If you are going to install an alarm system, have an alarm company design the wiring for it.
A final suggestion. Just before they are going to install insulation and button up the walls, go around with a camera and systematically photograph the studs, wiring and plumbing. In a couple of years when you are wanting to screw into a stud or figure out where the plumbing is, you have photos. Be systematic in the sequence so you can figure out which room and where you are later.
This guy said everything I was about to say. I also was thinking about this and concluded that that in the end some KNX system would have been the thing (looking mostly at ABB, since I'm based in Europe). Unfortunately I didn't have the money to do it, so it stayed at planning for my part.
My suggestion run cat5, speaker wire and a little fiber for audio and "the future". If needed strands of cat5 can be co-opted later for all manner of low amperage signaling (alarms, sensors, PoE nightlights)
Not much a fan of "home automation". I'm sure it has merits yet was never able to find a reason rising above a fun toy likely to get old after a few weeks and go unused... in the long run replacing key switches with $30 daylight timers and motion/occupancy sensor combos is cheap and effective.
If you can source it within budget run twisted romex everywhere and get a whole house surge suppressor. Just might keep yer gear from gettin crispified via "inductive coupling" from nearby lightning strikes :(
I am not your fellow geek! You are rich and I am Anonymous (Coward)!
If I had the money to do a new build, I would do so.
Many posters have mentioned running CAT6 everywhere. That's a very good idea. I don't know what software I would use, but I think there's a strong case here for rolling your own.
One key objective if I were doing this, is to be off-grid from the start wherever possible. This means lots of solar panels, batteries, an inverter, backup generator, and avoiding electrical heating like the plague. Stick to gas for cooking and maybe for heating also.
I would lay piping for under-floor heating, with latching solenoid valves for control. Install several solar geysers, pumped into a large, insulated underground tank for heat storage; pump the heated water from there through the under-floor piping network as required.
Install a borehole for your water supply needs.
A man's house is his castle. Have you seen a castle made out of matchsticks? Don't be silly like the other 303 million americans. Spend the automation money on burnt bricks and the concrete for the basement and the rebar beams and ceramic rooftiles and your great grandsons still will have a house! Maybe it will have one less bedroom, big deal.
Americans consider themselves the most christian nation, yet they blatantly ignore what Jesus said about the fool man and the wise men, who built their houses onto sand and rock, respectively!
(Most american townships are happy if they can show tourists a single 90 year old building. Show me just one younger than 400 year old building in Venice! Wood burns and winds disperse it like discarded newspaper. If a brick house burns, the bricks only become stronger and you just rebuild the roof. Adding ever more electric gizmos into a wooden home is a special american form of russian roulette.)
Went through this exercise and moved-in to our new place in May. My goals were: good future proofing, multi room audio, iPhone airplay for my wife, surround for the main tv, a home office for a guy who sometimes pokes around data projects, and as few exposed cables as possible.
What we ended up with was pretty good, but there's a couple lessons learned and things I'd do differently. First, what we did:
- dual cat6 and coax runs wherever a tv would be. 4xcat6 for bonus room/main tv :)
- quad cat6 to home office
- cat6/coax/power to outside CCTV. No plans to use it, but it's there.
- conduit to bonus room/main tv
- replaced all phone jacks with cat6/rj45
- pair of good speakers in main rooms and deck, wired to basement
- surround, in-wall speakers in bonus room/main tv
- Control4 system for automation and audio
- separate receiver for the main tv
- cubox-i's for xbmc. These are new, but working really well
- couple control4 light switches to play around with
- control4 module for the security system
- Nest for thermostat
- couple wemo power switches for Christmas lights
- iPhone for remote, but any phone would work
- good 24port managed gigabit switch. It's worth the extra few hundred bucks
- 2 ASUS dark knight routers with after-market range extenders. Full bars anywhere on the block
- rack in the basement. Keeps son out of the cabling and they're cheap secondhand
- unraid NAS for media. Cheap, reliable solution $/GB
- good power management
No regrets about any of this. The iPhone makes for a good universal remote and Control4 (audio/lights), the nest, our receiver, and xbmc all work great. If you wanted better integration you could probably buy a module from Control4, but I found the single controller offered a lot less than purpose-built apps.
No shortage on networking. I see fiber to the rooms being recommended, but they're already testing 10Gbit over cat6 so I was content to settle on copper. I figured it's a risk either way, there's always the potential for a new standard of cable in a couple years so conduit where it counts and practical for the rest. We don't use all the jacks right now, but they're cheaper at build than fishing cables after the fact.
The audio is also very good for a closed system like Control4. It'll read your library and has modules for services like Rhapsody which my wife uses regularly. I opted for a separate Yamaha for the main tv for better sound, plus I'm not spending a bunch of money on a Control4 locked-in video switcher in the basement. XBMC does a fine job sharing media and it's easy enough for non-techies like babysitting grandparents to figure out.
I'm not pleased with the two Control4 light switches. They use a Zigbee wireless system that has range issues unless you wire enough switches in your house for coverage, and are ridiculously expensive (almost $200 pretty switch!). It's neat being able to turn on the lights on my iPhone, but definitely not worth the price. MyUbe.co is promising sub-$60 light switches this spring that are rip and replace with app and an open API, so I'm keeping an eye on this as a future solution.
Two things I'd definitely have done differently knowing what I now do:
1) get more power. We've filled the breaker box and have been told will need another line from the city if we ever need more power. For a guy familiar with servers and power consumption this was pretty dumb on my part. Calculate your power needs before they trench your utility lines, or have them run one before the house is built. Our options for more power in the future are looking expensive, and a little planning could have saved that.
2) comparison shop your automation vendors, including multiple resellers of the same product. We picked Control4 with the builder's recommended vendor because they had a mature app and most of the features we wanted at the time, with what looked like good future options. This was a poor choice. The reseller intentionally misled us to
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Conduit conduit conduit. And ducts. If you bend conduit to fit the shape its a bear to get cables through after the fact if its the ribbed stuff everyone supplies.
I would run at least four cat5 points to each room, make one of them at least cat6 ftp to carry high bandwidth video signals.
Also, I would run extra points into your celing crawl space for occupancy sensor wiring. Ditto outside, you want ethernet to all your entry and egress points, yard, garden etc laid in trenches inside suitable conduit before the foundation goes in, you dont want them near the surface where they will be disturbed by vehicle traffic or damaged by frost etc. You can put a wifi ap up for the garden itself but thats best sat outside in an enclosure on the end of one of your ethernet cables with POE injectors to power it. Dont forget your outbuildings and sheds etc, you will sooner or later want them connected.
This should all be brought back to a root wiring closet, its going to get very very very crowded in there. You want some space for your router, switches, a small pc to control things (I have a pi in mine...), POE injector blocks for the sockets which need power, a 12v rail psu, a 5v rail psu (both of good quality and regulated, not shitty wall warts). Ive got 96 patch panel sockets in my closet and thats not including the sensor cabling etc which go direct to various places instead of via the root closet. It should also have some sort of cooling arrangement, as it will get hot in summer from the switches etc in there.
For lighting, I wanted a robust solution, x10 sucks (and I have direct experience of how much it sucks), wifi sucks, most of the proprietory stuff costs big money and sucks in some way and isnt open source friendly.
In the end I bought denkovi ethernet connected relay boards and have three root points for my lighting circuits, sat in each one is a daenetip3 powered by poe from the root closet. Light switches are momentary's to the inputs on these boards. For heating I have underfloor heating, that is controlled by a denkovi daenetip2 temperature and relay control board again ethernet connected, with sensors wired into the floors and inputs on the denkovi, I set the limits of maxima and minima via its web interface or via snmp and it can throw traps to my controlling computer. But if it sucks, I can take it all out and put a replacement technology in as the cat5 can carry whatever control signals I want. I'm trying to find some unified way to glue it all together, I can control the denkovi's from my own code, but I've been playing with freedomotic as some middleware glue, sadly I'm not very java friendly and the whole learning experience is quite steep and its had some bugs, hopefully with work it will mature up, which is great as its whole concept of middleware abstraction is architectually very sound. I just wish someone had wrote it in bash, or c, or php, or perl or some other unix friendly language, and it used the unix philosophy of small pieces working in harmony instead of trying to reinvent every part of the wheel. Did I mention I hate java?...
I'm five years into my house build, its a longer job than you think, unless by building you mean paying other people to do it for you :)
This will probably be lost in the comments anyway, so not bothing to put much more effort into the post. But conduit and ducts hey?
I work for a high-end home builder ($2-$5 million, 5,000+ SF, in South Florida).
All of our customers choose either Lutron or Vantage to control the lights in their house, and Digital Watchdog for their home security.
Personally for a new construction project I think Vantage is superior, but there are many items to take into consideration (low or high voltage halogen, or LED? Apple or Android control devices? Media consumption? etc). The best advice is, if you haven't already, hire a builder and get them to set you up an interview with their recommended low and high voltage electric contractors, then let them ask all the right questions. Once you learn what your criteria really are you'll know what the decision is.
Vantage or Crestron for your lighting and power, you had better get it done by the electrician when you build.
anything else is simply an ugly add on hack that will not work very well. Give up the solid marble countertops and install a real lighting control system.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Sorry Dave! It is 2 AM and I can not let you into the house.
I'm just finishing up building a small super massive super insulated. It is concrete. No adding wires later as I want everything hidden away for easy cleaning because this is to be a USDA inspected meat processing facility. Sanitation and clean-ability are key.
My solution is conduit. Our walls, floors and ceilings are packed with conduit for everything I intend to install and a lot of extra conduit for maybes.
See: http://sugarmtnfarm.com/butchershop and go to the various pages about construction to see photos of construction.
http://www.bwired.nl/
This guy has a lot of home automation. He describes how he did most of it.
Also has everything wired up to the internet.
Take a look at http://www.control4.com/
Conduit is the most versatile. If it's metal, it may also work to conduct WiFi, Zigbee, etc, though airduct or coax work wonders for those as well.
I like the idea of conduit for wiring because it allows you to add or replace cabling you otherwise wouldn't be able to, but I think you have to be smart about the structure of the conduit so that you have accessable, big junction boxes to enable long pulls or pulls between areas that aren't in a straight line.
One thing I'd like as an existing homeowner is video cameras and monitoring. I don't think I'll ever have them where I want them, though, because the wiring to corners of eaves and other locations is so onerous. In a new house I'd definitely want to plan for this because these are a lot harder to retrofit than wall locations.
The same is true for alarm wiring.
How else do you set up ground loops? :P
Seriously, the noise canceling properties of twisted pair aren't magic. Shielding helps a lot. Google will answer you here.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
Two Words: Vera & Z-Wave.
Check out the Vera3 home automation gateway. I've been running one in my house for about 2 years now with about 60 various devices under its control. The Vera3 gateway can interface with Z-Wave, X10 and Insteon devices as well as many wifi controlled devices. It's a COMPLETE package, not like the current trend of labeling a stand-alone thermostat or lightbulb you can control with your phone as "home automation".
1. From my experience with X.10... Buy several extra of everything You use for home automation, and at least one of everything You will never use. This prevents You from being unable to find the parts later (though eBay is always there.) In my case, X.10 was still around, but it was VERY NICE to have another window sensor that was EXACTLY THE SAME as every other window sensor I had installed. A different model is a PITA to integrate into an existing system.
This sounds expensive, but compare it to replacing the entire system when You need parts You can not find.
2. From my experience with IP camera systems...Use traditional wired-in alarm sensors on doors and windows. All decent home automation systems will use them. There are combiners (that’s now what they are called) that (for example) let You wire 5 window sensors into 1 input on Your automation system. Plan on maintenance every now and then, as these sensors do break.
3. From my experience with repair guys who feel entitled to trash any camera they see... Home alarm systems need to be locked in safes, or they WILL be tampered with. Security cameras should be lenses poking out of locked metal cabinets. All wiring should be inside walls.
4. From my experience installing Wi-Fi setups in similar high-end homes (but mine were all single-story)... Don’t forget to install a Wi-Fi access point in the attic every so often. These will communicate through the ceiling. Run wires from the Wi-Fi access points to a large, managed switch. Finally, run a wire from that switch to wherever You get Your Internet access from. This even works if the walls block radio signals, as ceilings do not block radio signals.
To help with the Wi-Fi in the attic, consider getting 100V outlets pre-installed in Your attic.
Leviton recently acquired HAI who makes some rather nice automation and security systems (http://www.leviton.com/OA_HTML/SectionDisplay.jsp?section=61367) I would recommend a Leviton structured wiring panel be placed next to your electrical load center, then home run conduit to each room with conduit pull line. Lines for window and door alarm contacts as well as smoke detectors can either be home run (more wires) or in a loop. For your square footage look at the Omni Pro, it handles all of the automation via UPB, Z-Wave, etc and also does security, so you can have all the lights turn on if there is an alarm, or have certain lights turn off/on when you use the fob to arm/disarm. It has an App (snaplink) that you can use for remote control form your smart device. It also does audio etc. I have one of the earlier versions of an Omni Pro (re-branded as aegis) in my house that I got to play with and I use it as my security/fire alarm.
4,000 feet on three levels .. ? you're a fucking moron.
Plenty of good advice here, especially having a central cupboard where you can run your wiring and have your media centre and putting Cat5e everywhere. I would add:
* put the cupboard not next to a bedroom, the whirring can get annoying
* run HDMI and speaker cables to your media cabinet
* tvs you don't include in above, put 2 plug sockets behind so you can power a Roku/mk802/etc
* run light switch cabling and lighting cabling back to your switch cabinet rather than in series, then you can connect how you want
* you can put IR control light switches in, Google "livolo", then make sure your controller (android tablet) has IR blaster
* for my next project I will definitely buy from here for controllers, including dimmers and sensors
* you can put IP cameras rather than motion sensors, or you can combine with IR, but placement is important
* might want to put cabling to above windows should you decided to have curtain controllers
Like others, I would put insulation as a top priority. Heating is one of the major costs in running a house.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
http://www.clarecontrols.com/ (this is not advertisement, its my personal opinion)
...is very ad-hoc... I'm doing a large reno of a cottage in the woods. I don't care so much about pressing a button in a room to set the lighting 'mood' or what have you. I care more about remotely monitoring and having the house do intelligent things while I'm away. I have a small ubuntu server that runs off a 12v SLA battery with a charger connected.
- I have an RCS TR-60 smart thermostat with RS-485. I can remotely monitor and set the temperature, fan, etc. My server also queries the indoor temp and outdoor temp every 5 minutes and populates an SQL db with that information (along with current set point, furnace runtime in the last hour, and whether the fan is running).
- I screen scrape the local weather office for wind speed/direction
- I will add an ultrasonic wind sensor this spring to avoid error prone screen scraping.
- I have a cut-out on the well pump pressure switch so I can override the well pump.
- I have water sensors on the floor in the electrical room.
- I can control the yard light remotely so I can turn it on before I arrive (it gets very dark in the forest at night, miles away from civilization).
- I can also remotely control sprinkler valves outside.
- I have a low voltage hookup to the resistive floor heating in a couple places of the house.
- I have a low voltage hookup to the hot water recirculation pump so there is always hot water at the kitchen sink which is a long way from the hot water heater.
So with the above, I can do things like tell whether the house is or is about to be occupied (if the thermostat setpoint is at the Away setting or the Run setting). From this I can turn on/off the recirculation pump, in-floor heating in the winter months, HRV, etc. I can set the thermostat before I leave home and when I arrive, the house is nice and toasty warm (or cool, in the summer)
With furnace runtime in the winter, I can compare with outside temperature and windspeed to get some good information on heat loss... If heat loss increases when the wind speed increases, I get a good idea if there are air leaks, and possibly even which side of the house based on wind direction.. I haven't implemented this yet but I do know how many btu's the house is actually losing vs a broad estimate based on construction. This has been helping to guide my renovations. When the furnace runtime has been slowly increasing over time vs outdoor temperature, I can tell when it's time to change the furnace filter.
I can automatically check the weather forecast and in the absence of rain, I can decide whether to water the gardens. Before turning on the sprinklers, I can activate the well pump and de-activate it when irrigation is finished. This way if a pipe bursts while I'm away, damage will be limited to the 1 gallon that is in the pressure tank as opposed to filling the house at 10gpm.
I did all the electrical, plumbing and wiring. I ran cat5e to each wall of each room. I ran a length of electrical conduit to each exterior wall of the house from the electrical room and installed an LB. I have lots of outdoor outlets. I ran 2" conduit between the furnace room and electrical room. So far I've used much of my exterior conduit for add-ons like VHF antenna, or ATSC, cellular signal booster antenna, etc.
It's all a work in progress and I am able to add stuff as I think of it. It's all very custom and DIY. It's all Python/mysql so far.
While it might be the desire to "do it yourself" don't! The "do it yourself" job will never end, always be in need of some tweaking, and it almost totally unsaleable, it's yours only you know what it's doing and how to fix it. I would not rely on WiFi for communication, due to security issues. Anyone can listen in on your system and get a good idea of what is going on, how vunerable one is and how to gain access. One can help the instalation by putting Cat5/6 in all the walls and access locations. Don't forget, garage, patio, pool, front walk, etc. When someone wants the front lit up with blinking Xmas lights timed to some music, it needs HA connection.
About 15 years ago I set up a wiring closet in my house. Over time I have learned some important lessons.
My house is only 1300 ft^2 with one level. It is built on a slab, so there is no basement. Fortunately the attic provides reasonably good access to the interior walls.
I ran at least one RG-6 coax, one CAT-5 (there was no such thing as CAT-6 back then) and one 4-wire telephone to a plate in every room. Most rooms have more than one plate. Some plates have two coax. Everything goes back to a central closet - really just a piece of plywood on the wall in the closet where the furnace and water heater are. I ran a dedicated 15-amp power circuit to the wiring panel with 4 pairs of outlets (16 total).
I do not subscribe to cable TV, so the coax has largely been unused. I have both television and FM antennas on the roof, and that uses a couple of the outlets to get to the back of my main hi-fi system.
The 4-wire telephone jacks also get very little use. I wish I had pulled two CAT-5 to every plate. One of them could be used for telephone systems including various PBX-like systems.
A few years after doing all of this, I added line-level audio to the wiring panel. I wish I had done that earlier. If you run line-level audio, be sure to use really good double-shielded cabling for it. I did not, and it picks up a fair bit of 60hz buzz.
I have tried some home automation stuff using X-10 devices. Some of them work and some do not. Reliability has been a big problem.
Here are my suggestions. Much of this echos comments from others.
1) You cannot have too many plates in each room. One per wall is not too many. Yes, that includes the bathrooms!
2) You cannot have too much power in each room. At least one 20-amp circuit per bedroom, preferably two, and separate from the lights in that room. At least one 20 amp circuit per wall in the family living spaces (living room, family room, multimedia room etc.) At least two or three 20 amp circuits on the kitchen counters. More 20 amp circuits in the garage and basement.
3) At least two Cat-6 per plate.
4) At least one RG-6 coax per plate. Two on some plates, especially if you think you might run a satellite or something to it.
5) At least one line-level audio pair to each plate.
6) Leave plenty of room in the conduits. Mine are jammed so full I cannot get anything more through them, and they only go about three feet from the plywood panel up to the attic.
7) Leave good stout pulling strings in every conduit.
8) Plates on the outside is a good idea. I have not needed them, but I don't have a deck or hot tub.
9) I don't really like any of the lighting controller systems that are available. X-10 is really old and lame. Insteon is not reliable. Z-Wave is hackable. Belkin WeMo depends on third-party servers.
10) Bring neutrals into every light switch box.
11) Running security wiring while the walls are open is good, even if you are not going to use it.
12) Whole-house surge protection and GFI.
13) Buy an electrical panel that is twice what you think you will need. This means both amperage capacity and number of circuits.
14) Make a provision for connecting a whole-house generator.
15) Run at least three speaker wire pairs from the front to the back of any place you might put a home theater system.
16) Run some HDMI cabling to the center of the ceiling where you might hang a projector. Also put a power circuit up there.
17) Same goes for any place you might put a VESA mount. Run HDMI, power and Ethernet to the back of any television.
I have been using home seer software with 9 insteon wall modules and three insteon wall switchs for the last three years. I use the insteon addon modules that tie the two legs of electrical legs of the house together so insteon signals progpagate well. Has been very reliable. I use one insteon wall module with higher amp rating to turn on and off a water valve connected to hose spigot. I will be adding zwave thermostat and door locks soon. check out homeseer.com Not cheap but works with most of theprotocols of home automation control and status monitoring.
If I were doing it all over, I'd run some kind of power lines up high in the walls so that I could easily power digital picture frames and/or wall-mount television sets.
I put in 10 Insteon devices in my house three years back, and 7 of them have failed.
I've had a few conversations with the company and they don't see a problem, nor would they replace any because their warranty period is so short on their products.
That's over $1000 lost on the system. I'd stay clear from them unless you want to be continually replace failing devices. Any convenience is lost in ongoing costs and frustration.
A couple of decades ago I tried to do a little prep to the house being built for me. There were some successes, but mostly failure. Here's what I learned... trying to prewire is fine but you're not going to have a lot of what you wish for later, and some of what you do will never be used (missing: AC power to here and there and Cat5e to everywhere; unused: 10Base2 and 75 ohm 100% shielding TV coax to several rooms, in my case). Do run wires to the vicinity of every window or door in outside walls for 1) security sensors, and 2) power for lights, cameras, whatever. Pulling cable up and down through insulated outside walls later is undesirable, to say the least. Do make sure you have plenums of some type, accessible, above or below every ceiling and floor. Empty conduit is fine, but it won't be exactly where you want it. I'd only bother to do that for outside walls. If you can access inside walls from above or below, you can easily pull cables to the exact spot you want them later. Don't forget to bury conduit and/or cables in trenches to the general area of outbuildings or lampposts you might add later. You'll want any damage (and there will be some) to trees and shrubbery to occur right away, not 10 years later when you realize you need some trenches. Install several (not just 2) outside power outlets, individually switched.
So there's the early cabling prep. What else? Water, HVAC, air, gas... Obviously your location will make some of these things irrelevant. I wanted compressed air and running water in my backyard workshop, along with electricity and Ethernet (almost done). I would like a ground-source heat pump, but trenching for that after the house was complete is not an option for me. While the backhoe is on premises, bury the pipe for that NOW. It's relatively cheap to do that at this point, but likely infeasible later. If you wait, you may only be able to go vertical, and drilling half a dozen holes several hundred feet down is expensive unless your brother-in-law is in the business. Consider the freshwater pipes for a sprinkler system or outdoor shower or future pool. Burying these later is OK but you'll want to have a source for them near the outside wall of your house to tap. Planning a home theatre? Think about not just the speaker wiring, but how you're going to ventilate/cool the equipment, and how you're going to access the back of it all without pulling it out every time you want to plug something in. Where is your water heater in relation to the showers? You might want to install a hot water return pipe so you can circulate the hot water to avoid waiting unless you'll have an on-demand water heater near the point of demand. Natural gas? You might want to install some copper lines to various areas now which can be connected later when you add some kind of appliances (HVAC in an added room, for example). Think you might want to add ceiling fans later? Go ahead and install the junction boxes, WITH bracing. You can drywall over them until needed.
Where are those confounded junction boxes/alarm system wires/conduit/etc?!? Photograph or videotape everything before the drywall covers it. I did, and I'd be happy about that if I could ever find the videotape I made !@#$#%^&
What about the automation... oh, yeah, mostly right now you just want to make the fun part of setting that up fun by prepping the house for whatever you want later. I'd go with wired (less chance of interference or interception from outside), but each to his own. Too bad nothing has had the universal adoption of X10 (RIP). A couple more things, unrelated: bats can get in anything with at least a 3/8" crack, and they will. Make sure the house has no openings, particularly to the attic. Also make sure that your crawl space/basement/whatever is water tight and the exterior around it well-drained and that your garage slab and driveway are on a solid base. Around here, those things do not get the attention they deserve from builders. Good luck and have fun.
I just went through the same power failure, and came to a different conclusion:
Install a natural gas generator with an automatic switchover when the power goes out. The cost wouldn't be too different, I think, but this way you wouldn't even notice a power outage.
Just hire some lackeys to do if for you. Far simpler, and you get the satisfaction of reducing unemployment!
Agree with posters who mentioned about Ethernet and coax in every room all going back to a main distribution panel. And maybe fiber too. And conduit for anything that comes along later.
However, not everything can be centralized. Don't overlook the possibility of equipment that might need to be scattered around the house (transmitters, receivers, hubs, access points, etc.) You're going to want that stuff in closets. You'll want some of the distributed wiring to go to those closets.
Suggestion #1: build small utility closets around the house. About one every 500 sq ft.
Suggestion #2: put an electrical outlet in every closet, no matter how small the closet.
Keep your equipment from getting coated with dust over time, which leads me to...
One more, suggestion #3: all the home automation in the world is not going to clean your house. Put in a central vacuum system. It's less noise and more suction than any portable vacuum. And you don't need to worry about dirt recirculation because it exhausts outside. Store the vacuum hoses and attachments in the aforementioned closets.
I did #1 and #2. I regret not doing #3. Everything gets so damn dusty.
I am also building a house ATM. I opted for Eltako wireless but the non-wireless part of it :) See http://www.eltako.com/en/the-wireless-building/4-the-remote-switch-system-fts14-modular-rs485-bus-of-the-next-generation.html
Very interesting option. Could you elaborate on the type of SSD relay you used / recommend? The only issue I have with these kind of DIY options is the risk since I am assuming this option doesn't meet your typical "code" standards??
Personally, I'd like a mesh network based on a UWB protocol. If you run conduit, I recommend at least 1" internal diameter PVC. Use boxes at the corners that will remain accessible, and large radius elbows at the corners that will not be. Be sure to run pulling cord through it , and tie it at both ends, before you close up the walls. Whenever you pull new cable, pull a new length of cord with the cable for next time. If you have a long run, there is a special water based lubricant to make it easier, but I hear dish soap works as well. Before using fish tape, try blowing the cord through the conduit with compressed air, it almost always works. If it doesn't at first, tie a wad of paper a bit smaller than the internal diameter to the cord, and try again.
Consider Clipsal C-Bus. The protocols are open, it's scriptable, programmable, integrates with almost anything. Disclaimer - I've worked there, so I won't say any more - feel free to do your own research. Before walls up is the best time to implement because the wiring topology is different from the standard electrical fitout.
That only takes care of the thermostat and smoke alarms, you still need light, window shade, temperature, contact sensors, relay and A/V controls.
You can start off inexpensively (controller, remote and a couple lights) and build up from there.
I have light, window shade, thermostat, doorbell, A/V equipment control, whole house audio, security system (smoke alarms, door and window sensors), motion, water, temperature sensors and security cameras all integrated and can be used with the radio remotes, from the controller's TV UI, touchscreens or mobile phone or device. You can also have the option to monitor and control the system remotely with a tablet or smart-phone. There's also the consumer version of the dealer's software so you can program different aspects of the system yourself.
c4forums http://www.c4forums.com/ is a good place to ask questions.
I'm not sure I'm gonna count a Unit Imperialist as a fellow geek, even NASA got finally rid of those fossils few years ago, get with the program, man!
Troll 2.0 Fear my asocial networking!
I recently built a house (well my builder did) and I have cat 6' coax, hdmi and speaker cable installed to a hub centrally. My builder suggested the hdmi and it was a great idea. I can plug my xbox to any of the TVs (up to 15metres of hdmi cable) and the control works perfectly at distance. The speaker wire is for 5.1 surround in 2 rooms, so I can install in wall speakers.
You don't say what city your parents lived near, but if it was Boston that must have been purchased quite some time ago. Nowadays that would easily be a $1M house.
I'd say put at least two ethernet jacks in every room. It's not uncommon to have a cable fail. Pulling two cables is rarely any more difficult than pulling one. Buy yourself two boxes of cable, pull them out together, duct tape them together, then fish them through. Makes it very easy to pull two at once.