ᐅ Preparing a Smart Home for Future Expansion (No Wireless/Cloud)
Created on: 3 Sep 2023 13:18
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Numrollen
Hello,
I am currently building a house; the walls are up, and the roof will be installed in the next few days. I work in IT, but for cost reasons, and because my electrician isn’t very familiar with the topic, I haven’t paid much attention to smart home systems. HOWEVER, I would like to prepare everything so that the basics are in place. I would rather not have to open up walls again later just because I got bored. Ideally, KNX would be great, but it’s quite expensive. My preferred option is probably Home Assistant; I will definitely install my own server using Docker/VMs. That will be a lot of work. Or simply a basic system like Homematic wired. This is my intention and line of thought. Here are some additional points to help understand what is important to me and what I have already planned.
- Power over Ethernet (PoE) RJ45 cables planned so far for the garage door, 2 outdoor cameras (if installed), front door, and 2 ceiling access points.
- I do not want any product that requires an internet connection. If there is an app, it should be optional and accessed via VPN into the house before use—no “cloud product” from a manufacturer. Also for data privacy reasons.
- I would like everything to be wired wherever possible, no wireless/Wi-Fi.
Now that electrical wiring is about to begin and I will soon be chiseling wall channels:
- What makes sense to wire, and which type of cables? For example, electric roller shutters are currently controlled by a classic switch at the door. Which cables should I run down to the fuse box? Just extend the existing 2-wire cable? Or should I run at least one RJ45 cable per room to the control boxes?
- For lighting, I might extend only outdoor lights and living room lights. The hallway will be controlled by a motion sensor, and I don’t currently see any point in individual room lighting control (or do I?).
- How much space should I allow for the distribution board/panel, or should I keep some free space? Or would it be better to install a second panel next to it in 1-4 years instead of reserving empty space now?
Are there any other aspects I should consider now that would be difficult to deal with later?
I would really appreciate it if someone with experience could help me out.
Best regards, and have a great Sunday!
I am currently building a house; the walls are up, and the roof will be installed in the next few days. I work in IT, but for cost reasons, and because my electrician isn’t very familiar with the topic, I haven’t paid much attention to smart home systems. HOWEVER, I would like to prepare everything so that the basics are in place. I would rather not have to open up walls again later just because I got bored. Ideally, KNX would be great, but it’s quite expensive. My preferred option is probably Home Assistant; I will definitely install my own server using Docker/VMs. That will be a lot of work. Or simply a basic system like Homematic wired. This is my intention and line of thought. Here are some additional points to help understand what is important to me and what I have already planned.
- Power over Ethernet (PoE) RJ45 cables planned so far for the garage door, 2 outdoor cameras (if installed), front door, and 2 ceiling access points.
- I do not want any product that requires an internet connection. If there is an app, it should be optional and accessed via VPN into the house before use—no “cloud product” from a manufacturer. Also for data privacy reasons.
- I would like everything to be wired wherever possible, no wireless/Wi-Fi.
Now that electrical wiring is about to begin and I will soon be chiseling wall channels:
- What makes sense to wire, and which type of cables? For example, electric roller shutters are currently controlled by a classic switch at the door. Which cables should I run down to the fuse box? Just extend the existing 2-wire cable? Or should I run at least one RJ45 cable per room to the control boxes?
- For lighting, I might extend only outdoor lights and living room lights. The hallway will be controlled by a motion sensor, and I don’t currently see any point in individual room lighting control (or do I?).
- How much space should I allow for the distribution board/panel, or should I keep some free space? Or would it be better to install a second panel next to it in 1-4 years instead of reserving empty space now?
Are there any other aspects I should consider now that would be difficult to deal with later?
I would really appreciate it if someone with experience could help me out.
Best regards, and have a great Sunday!
Also an IT professional here, and I’ve had the same thought process as you. I was even close to chasing channels and running cables myself, but I didn’t really know much about KNX—just the basics, like you.
Then I stepped back mentally a couple of steps and reconsidered. If you start pulling cables through all the conduits yourself, you’ll definitely hit a wall, especially since your electrician still needs to pull their cables as well. Working as a professional tradesperson with a non-expert is definitely a test of patience. Everything has to be coordinated somehow. If a non-professional were interfering with my work, I’d lose it completely. Not to mention it would take three times as long.
That made it clear to me: either the electrician does it all, or I give it up. Since a KNX system was too expensive for me, I decided against it and had everything wired traditionally for now. I only had Ethernet run to every room, the hallway ceilings (for access points), outside, etc.
I will implement everything later myself using Shelly devices, Zigbee, Thread, Matter, Homebridge, and so on. I’m already doing this in our current rental apartment, and we’re very happy with it. We all have iPhones and use HomeKit as the frontend for it. That makes the whole setup usable even for the biggest beginner. It’s also quite reliable—we currently experience fewer than one or two outages per year in the apartment.
Of course, it’s not as neat a solution as a KNX system, but it’s also a hobby for IT people like us. For others, it might be gardening—I'm just tinkering with this stuff. This way, I can set everything up exactly how I want it.
At the start of building the house, you always want everything to be perfect. But now, after the thousandth decision and endless extra costs, I’m just glad we’ll be moving in soon.
Then I stepped back mentally a couple of steps and reconsidered. If you start pulling cables through all the conduits yourself, you’ll definitely hit a wall, especially since your electrician still needs to pull their cables as well. Working as a professional tradesperson with a non-expert is definitely a test of patience. Everything has to be coordinated somehow. If a non-professional were interfering with my work, I’d lose it completely. Not to mention it would take three times as long.
That made it clear to me: either the electrician does it all, or I give it up. Since a KNX system was too expensive for me, I decided against it and had everything wired traditionally for now. I only had Ethernet run to every room, the hallway ceilings (for access points), outside, etc.
I will implement everything later myself using Shelly devices, Zigbee, Thread, Matter, Homebridge, and so on. I’m already doing this in our current rental apartment, and we’re very happy with it. We all have iPhones and use HomeKit as the frontend for it. That makes the whole setup usable even for the biggest beginner. It’s also quite reliable—we currently experience fewer than one or two outages per year in the apartment.
Of course, it’s not as neat a solution as a KNX system, but it’s also a hobby for IT people like us. For others, it might be gardening—I'm just tinkering with this stuff. This way, I can set everything up exactly how I want it.
At the start of building the house, you always want everything to be perfect. But now, after the thousandth decision and endless extra costs, I’m just glad we’ll be moving in soon.
Mycraft schrieb:
I think that’s not good in today’s world. But that’s just my opinion. It’s better if he states it clearly upfront! It’s worse when the electrician agrees to it, the general contractor or sales department plans something themselves due to lack of expertise, and in the end someone has to come in for a lot of money to fix it. That’s unfortunate for the customer, but the fault lies with the choice of the electrician.
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HeimatBauer6 Sep 2023 17:52Mycraft schrieb:
I think that’s problematic nowadays. But that’s just my opinion. The electrician already reached his limits with a standard electrical installation, and in some cases, I had to run my own wiring because his work was in a very questionable gray area of compliance and definitely did not meet my standards. I appreciate that he said: I don’t do smart home systems; if you want that, no problem, then you should hire another company.
My neighbors are building with the same developer, want a full smart home but also want to save money. So they had all the electrical work done by their own electrician who said, “Sure, I can do that,” probably thinking, “Everyone has a first time.” The result: after installing all the wiring without documentation, he vanished without a trace, and a new electrician had to trace every cable from scratch.
So, for me, a clear “I don’t do smart home systems, please see a colleague” is perfectly fine.
Whether the electrician will remain successful with this approach is another matter.