Home Automation

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Home automation is the residential extension of building automation.

It is automation of the home, housework or household activity.

Home automation may include centralized control of lighting, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), appliances, security locks of gates and doors and other systems, to provide improved convenience, comfort, energy efficiency and security.

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What you wish you should have done smarter if you were building a house to accommodate all of the IOTs connecting to HA (alien.top)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I am building a house and trying to avoid power bricks and cables hanging on the wall for motion sensors, blind shutters, "add next smart house blinky here".

This is just an aexample photo:

example HA rooms

So I was thinking each IOT needs to have internet connection anyway. What about if I run a single CAT cable to each room, and position a switch in each room to split to couple CATs in each room (power socket, tv socket, window, ceiling fan). Main CAT from each room to go to the server room router. That way I can have one cable per room coming out from the router. And with some inexpensive POE switches in each room I can split to extra IOTs.

That way I wont be saturating the home wireless and needing expensive APs. And in the same time can deliver POE. Alternatively I can modify the CATs to run only 4 wires for 100MB network and remaining 4 for 12V if POE injection is complicated or routers cant deliver required IOT current.

I must say most IOTs will be DIY ESP/Arduino/MCUs

Is it possible you guys think?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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

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

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

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

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

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