ᐅ Smart Home – Which System Is Best for a New Build?

Hello dear forum community,

We are currently at the very beginning of planning the electrical system and are quite undecided about whether a smart home system (KNX, etc.) makes sense or not.

Our requirements are as follows:
- Control of blinds including a timer function
- Lighting control
- Video and intercom system, which should be installed in the basement, living/dining room, and hallway on the upper floor
- It does not necessarily need to be app-controlled, and if it is, it only needs to work when we are at home (the door does not need to be opened remotely via app)
- Motion sensors on stairs and hallways
- Dimmable lighting

Each room will also have a room thermostat. This does not necessarily need to be centrally controlled.

I have recently come across the GIRA System 3000. Does anyone have experience with it? From what I have read, it should cover all of the stated requirements. Have we forgotten anything essential that should definitely be considered?

Thank you very much for your experiences and assessments.

Best regards and have a nice evening

The question is: what do you want? We have been studying this topic intensively for some time now. I have since deliberately started avoiding the term "Smart Home." A truly smart home should reduce manual interventions in house control. The goal is for the house to automatically adjust itself as I walk through it—based on lighting conditions, time of day, sun position, and current room usage—to do exactly what seems sensible to the user, without the user needing to intervene.

KNX is definitely the most reliable medium for this, but it is also quite expensive. There are other systems as well, but they are usually tied to specific manufacturers.

What most people call a Smart Home is basically just some fancy app control. Controlling blinds or lighting with a phone on the couch—that can be done by many systems.

So, the question remains what you actually want.

Edit: I am just repeating here what has been told to me in this forum.

Hello,

Thank you for your response.
It is important for us to have a stable and reliable system.
It doesn’t need to be overly fancy or “decide” on its own whether the lights should be on or off.
We can definitely handle that ourselves.
As mentioned, timed blinds would be great, and if I can control the lights and blinds from the couch or sofa, even better.
I assume a system with KNX (and similar) can do much more, which we probably wouldn’t use.

Have you had any experience with the mentioned system from Gira? Or are there any good alternatives we should look into?

Best regards

P.S.: If there are any additional points (probably more than we realize) that we haven’t considered yet, please feel free to share. Thanks!

I suspect that a KNX system might be more than you need. However, this is just my humble, non-professional opinion. Perhaps Busch-Jaeger free@Home could be a suitable option for you.

We have blinds almost everywhere on the south side. The automatic shading with sun position tracking is absolutely amazing. I am not aware of any other system that manages this control so well.

Busch Jäger free@Home is basically a simplified version of KNX / a downgrade with even higher prices. It would not be a recommendation for me.