ᐅ Best Smart Home Upgrade for New Construction

Created on: 20 Jul 2021 13:17
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Pacc666
Hello

Are there good retrofit smart home systems available?

We bought a semi-detached house as a new build from a developer.

The electrician declined to work with KNX and said he is not familiar with it and won’t do it.

My question is: Are there good retrofit options for smart home systems that don’t require opening up the walls (that is not an option)?

Which systems would you recommend?

Functions:

Light control
Window sensors (preferably invisible)
Shutter control
Music control
Video doorbell

It should definitely be possible to create scenes and rules.

I’m also open to other suggestions for useful functions I may not have thought of yet.
K1300S5 Aug 2021 15:49
Planning is definitely part of the building process, unless you leave everything in the hands of a trustworthy system integrator (SI), though I would probably be too concerned that things might not be done exactly the way I want.
Mycraft5 Aug 2021 16:05
RotorMotor schrieb:

Did you build new and also plan all the electrical installations yourself at the same time?
Yes, exactly. I also carried out some of the work myself and made changes during the process, while the walls were still open, in places where we thought of additional useful features.
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RotorMotor
5 Aug 2021 16:09
Impressive! I realize that right now I really lack the time to spend a lot on electrical work alongside family, job, tiles, doors, and so on.
K1300S5 Aug 2021 17:24
Being a builder is definitely not a walk in the park. 😉
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daniel0319
7 Aug 2021 23:05
Hello everyone,

I couldn’t find an introduction thread, so I’m just posting here directly.

I’m currently in the construction phase and have already given some thought to smart home systems.

In our current apartment, I use Home Assistant with a Conbee stick and a few Wi-Fi plugs. Since systems like KNX are a bit too expensive for me and I don’t want to spend a fortune, I’ve been thinking about how to achieve a good setup at a reasonable cost. The current idea is to control the blinds using Shelly or Sonoff actuators. For the lighting, something similar, and possibly to use Homematic for the underfloor heating, integrating that into Home Assistant as well.

I’ve already read through some of the posts in this thread but haven’t been able to read everything. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions, maybe advice like “better don’t do this” or “do it this way because it’s better and cheaper”?

I would really appreciate some help because there are so many systems out there, and to keep track of everything I feel like you almost need to complete a degree.

Basically, I like to tinker and I’m willing to do some DIY, but it should stay within a manageable scope.

Thanks in advance to everyone.
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hanse987
8 Aug 2021 00:09
daniel0319 schrieb:

possibly consider using Homematic for the underfloor heating

Underfloor heating works best if you set it once and don’t keep adjusting it. Underfloor heating has a very slow response time.