ᐅ Smart Home – Do I Need One… or Not?

Hello everyone,

Please don’t take this thread too seriously – but I’m curious to see where the discussion goes.

I’m about to build a single-family house with 1.5 stories, including private and commercial space, around 150 m² (1,615 sq ft) just for myself.
When the plan started to take shape, it was clear to me – of course Flo is going to do smart home, being tech-savvy, formerly working in IT, and naturally wanting everything connected and automated, because that’s what you need these days.
And it would be silly not to include smart home features in a new build in 2022, whether you actually need them or not.

So I looked into it and especially the costs.
$20,000 plus normal electricity costs (whether KNX or Loxone) are no small expense, so I decided to first see what a smart home really can do and whether I even want it.

Ventilation control – NO (I don’t have ventilation)
Shutter control – NO (I don’t need to control it from anywhere in the world)
Window open/close – NO (window motors alone are too expensive)
Alarm system – NO (I don’t have one)
Door intercom – YES, but this is covered by the intercom provider, and since I’m alone, the app is enough for me.
Weather sensors – NO
Mailbox – YES, that would be cool: like having a display at the entrance and a sensor in the mailbox so you don’t always have to open the door.
Surveillance cameras – YES, but those are covered by the camera provider.
Heat pump / photovoltaics / underfloor heating monitoring and control – YES, that would be nice, but does it justify the cost?
Switchable sockets – YES, that would actually be the first thing I really want.
Lighting control – NO for scenes. YES for motion detectors and different brightness levels for day and night.

So I came to the conclusion: no real smart home, I’ll wire everything conventionally.
Hallway, bathroom, utility room, guest toilet, pantry will have motion sensors, but without adjusted lighting levels – that’s about all I can do.

Now, feel free to share your thoughts. As I said, I’ve more or less given up on the topic.
But if anyone has an intermediate solution, I would still appreciate hearing about it.

Best regards
Flo

You have my yes. However, it won’t be long before posts about the house adapting to the occupant, comfort improvements, efficiency gains, synergy effects, etc. start appearing 😉

I find the following very practical:

• Lighting control, blinds and roller shutter control for the entire house at central control points (bedrooms, front door before leaving).
• Simple integration of occupancy and motion sensors for lighting control (not excessive).
• Automatically dimmed lighting during the evening and nighttime hours.
• Window status (factory-installed reed switch per window for 45€).

None of this is a must-have, you can implement these functions in other ways, but as an IT professional who can configure the system myself, I look forward to further applications. Rain + open window: Telegram notification to the phone, garage door/driveway gate can be opened from the house switches, and so on.

For me, it didn’t cost an extra €20,000 (about $22,000), and most electricians were relieved when I said I would configure the system myself. I would have regretted not doing it and would have sooner given up on the sliding door than on KNX.

Hangman schrieb:

You have my full agreement. However, it won’t be long before posts appear about houses adapting to the occupant, comfort improvements, increased efficiency, synergy effects, etc. 😉

I fully agree because it really adds value. But I, and hopefully others, won’t be provoked here. I already mentioned in the door lock topic how unfortunate it is to always be looked at askance. The forum members you mentioned rarely or never did the same when someone didn’t want any of these features.
However, I want to ask the original poster:
What does this topic have to do with external control? That would be the last thing I want.
Why would I want to actively control my roller shutters from outside?
I’m not even there when I’m outside…
*scratches head*

nullhorn schrieb:

When the plan started to take shape, it was clear to me—Flo is definitely into smart home tech, a tech enthusiast, formerly in IT, so of course everything is connected and automated, that’s what you need nowadays.

Nonsense. As an IT professional myself, I don’t do any of that either. On one hand, a local-only network (where everything can only be controlled inside the house and is not accessible from outside) offers only half the benefit. I can see open windows, control the heating, and so on. On the other hand, anything connected to the internet will sooner or later be hacked. Over the past three months at the office, we had neither heating control nor working light switches because the electrician botched the job and delayed fixing it.
And ultimately, most of it is just playing around. That’s not necessarily a bad thing—some people spend time in the garden, others program their house, and some fly drones around. But in all these cases, I see little real increase in comfort and quite a bit of work if something stops working, plus significant investments to make it all happen.

Hangman schrieb:

So you have my yes.

What do you mean by that? A yes to smart home or a yes to not having a smart home?

As I already mentioned at the beginning, I don’t want to provoke or annoy anyone here.
I just wanted to throw this out there again, and maybe someone will write one or two lines that will actually convince me.
I have also watched a few YouTube house tours, both extravagant and more normal ones,
and I could only conclude, “Hmm, do I really need this in everyday life – probably not?”

I mean, if someone said to me now, “Motion sensors for lighting control + time-dependent lighting control can also be managed independently,” that would be something.
I’m starting to realize that maybe I need to be a bit more open-minded, and I also understand that in a house where 4 out of 8 rooms no longer have switches, you might not need any more either.
On the other hand, I’m also someone who really wants “old-style” rocker switches. No push-buttons, no 8-way multi-function controls.

EDIT: And just installing a control cable in every room doesn’t really help,
because then you’d have to open up the walls in that room in order to run it to an actuator.