ᐅ Which smart home system is best for our new build?

POE switches naturally require more power the more devices they need to supply. 😉

But overall not more than if you power the individual devices separately.

Total power over Ethernet (PoE) switch and total regular switch and all individual devices, e.g., access points.

In total, it should be similar, right?

If I were to assume, then yes.
I would even argue that a PoE switch is more efficient than running all devices with their own power supplies.
The switch only needs to convert from 230V to 24V once. Without PoE, each power supply has to convert separately from 230V to 24V.
However, this is just an assumption.
It would need to be measured, but I could imagine that overall the PoE switch consumes slightly less power.

The technical specifications for all devices are freely available. You just need to compare them.

If both have similar power consumption, I would choose the better system.

What would you recommend?
One 12-port PoE switch or one 8-port regular switch plus one 5-port PoE switch?

Does it make more sense to have just one switch, or to keep the PoE switch as small as possible?

No matter what you choose, you have one port too few on the switch for your 12 LAN outlets because you forgot the uplink.

Have you already selected the exact PoE devices? Without this selection, it’s not possible to choose a switch, as the PoE standard and the PoE budget need to be considered.