ᐅ Smart Home Preparation in New Construction

Hello,

we are currently building a semi-detached house with a developer.
The assigned electrician does not offer any smart home options (he only wants to do the standard electrical installation) (that’s how it is with developers).

However, we would like to have a simple "smart home" (I know smart home is not the exact term) or be able to retrofit one later.
Our new house is expected to be handed over before March 2023.

What options do we have for a smart home that can be retrofitted?

What do you think about the new smart home standard Matter?
I can imagine that Matter could replace the current wireless smart home protocols (Zigbee and Z-Wave).
As an alternative to Matter, I could also consider EnOcean.
What is your opinion on EnOcean? I like the idea of it being battery-free.

Which smart home wireless standard would you say is future-proof and would you recommend?

I don’t have to set up the smart home immediately after handover; I can also do it after about a year (in case Matter is delayed).

We basically only want to cover standard functions:

Light switches
Power outlets
Roller shutter control (we have electric roller shutters everywhere)
Window sensors (preferably invisible in the handle with handle position detection)
Underfloor heating controllers
Weather station
Video doorbell (to retrofit ourselves)
Possibly door lock (e.g., Nuki)

All of this should work together with small, simple automations.

Would you advise against something like Homematic IP because only one manufacturer is behind the technology?

To be able to retrofit later, what do we need to have prepared by the electrician during the new build?
Since these are retrofit systems, probably not much, right?

I’m thinking we should have the electrician prepare the following:

- Deep flush-mounted boxes to be able to retrofit smart home technology
- Simple light switches only (I have never seen smart light switches with toggle switches where you can turn the light on and off by pressing left or right)
- Sufficient LAN cabling

What else should we keep in mind?

Thank you very much for your help so we don’t make mistakes.

A wired smart home like KNX is unfortunately not offered by the electrician (it would probably be too much and too expensive for us anyway).
We don’t have the biggest smart home demands; we just want to increase our comfort a bit, and of course, it’s a bit of a hobby.

https://www.hausbau-forum.de/threads/neues-smarthome-system-von-matter.40080/
You can already find a thread about Matter there.

If you want to use wireless only, it basically doesn’t matter which system you choose. I have used Homematic before. It works.
Soon I will install some Shelly devices and run everything through ioBroker.

Note: You can save the money for automating the heating system. If the heating is properly set up, it will work reliably. You can also remove all switches and actuators then.

We are building without heating in the basement; the entire development will be supplied with district heating from a combined heat and power plant.

According to the developer, we will get ERR, which will also respond to the temperature.

Unfortunately, we cannot manage this through the heating system.

Do we need to consider anything else besides the issue with the light switches (is that even correct?) and the deep flush-mounted boxes?

Manatarms123 schrieb:

Hello,

We are currently building a semi-detached house with a developer.
Our assigned electrician does not offer smart home solutions (he only wants to do the standard electrical installation) (that’s just how it is with developers).

However, we would like to have a simple "smart home" (I know that "smart home" is not the perfect term) or add it later.
Our new house should be handed over before March 2023.

What options do we have for retrofitting a smart home?

What do you think about the new Matter smart home standard?
I can imagine that Matter might replace current wireless smart home protocols (Zigbee and Z-Wave).
As an alternative to Matter, I could also imagine EnOcean.
What do you think about EnOcean? I like the idea of it being battery-free.

Which smart home wireless standard would you say is future-proof and would recommend?

I don’t need to set up the smart home immediately after handover; I can do it after about a year or so (in case Matter is delayed).

We basically just want to cover the standard functions:

Light switches
Power outlets
Roller shutter control (we have electric roller shutters everywhere)
Window sensors (preferably invisible in the handle with handle position detection)
Underfloor heating controllers
Weather station
Video doorbell (to retrofit ourselves)
Possibly a door lock (e.g. Nuki)

All of this should work together with simpler automations.

Would you advise against Homematic IP because it is backed by only one manufacturer?

What do we need to prepare during the new build with the electrician to enable later retrofitting?
Since these are retrofit systems, actually not much, right?

I think we should have the electrician prepare the following:

- Deep flush-mounted boxes to retrofit smart home technology?
- Only install simple light switches (I’ve never seen toggle switches on smart light switches where you can switch a light on and off from both sides)
- Sufficient LAN cabling

What else should we consider?

Thank you very much for your help so we don’t make mistakes.

Unfortunately, the electrician does not offer a wired smart home like KNX (which would probably be too much and too expensive for us anyway). We don’t have the highest smart home demands, we just want to increase our comfort a bit and, of course, it’s a bit of a hobby.

The main thing is probably deep flush-mounted boxes. They are standard in our construction service specification. Then the question is how integrated you want everything to be. I have now decided to simply use several different apps. Smart home might be something else, but for now I will implement the following:

- Bosch roller shutter actuators
- Bosch Smart Home smoke detectors Twinguard
- Bosch motion detectors with integrated alarm system
- Doorbell, cameras, and robot vacuum from Eufy
- Philips Hue for lighting

Everything will be connected with Alexa and that’s it. Costs are very manageable, and I have my playground 😎

I would like everything in one app (or as few as possible), which is why I find Matter so interesting, as it ensures compatibility between all manufacturers and combines everything into a single app.

Then, everything can be connected to Alexa or Google (with Matter, you can also choose and switch between them anytime).

But we want to do it similarly to you @Neubau2022.

What do you think about EnOcean? For example, Eltako or Opus.

Manatarms123 schrieb:

What options do we have for retrofitting a smart home?
What do you think about the new smart home standard Matter?

Engine displacement cannot be replaced by anything else. In this sense, I only know one effective remedy when an electrician is incompetent and/or unwilling, and that is armies of empty conduits* (note especially: only an empty conduit is a conduit!). Since I’m not in favor of unnecessarily generating electromagnetic pollution myself, I see wireless connections exclusively for devices that are used nomadically – anything stationary should be provided with wired connection options.

The most important aspect of “standards” is not how “new” they are, but how “compatible” they are, because for the latest electronic trends of 2022/23, you might hardly find the required legacy drivers anymore by 2035, even secondhand. Also note a simple insight: communication channels reserved for star/tree network topologies* can be more easily converted to a bus topology than the other way around. Standards and quasi-standards are challenging to weigh against each other, not only for beginners; a key criterion is their adoption: it’s better if a large consortium of manufacturers and co-developers supports it rather than just a single one (even if they have an impressive market share). You basically have to ask yourself what kind of user you are: do you value the hippest and most feature-rich setup and are willing, after eight years (when all the early hype has died down), to pull out all the cables again? Or do you define “smart home” and “retrofitting” more as simply upgrading, for example, the blinds control in the week after the house handover and that’s it – with the system never being touched again for eternity? This inevitably leads to different decisions.

*) EVERY junction in the wiring should simultaneously be an access panel!

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