I’ve been using HA for just over a year now and my current home is filled with esp8266 boards using MQTT for switches and sensors, a pile of sonoff’s and the odd Xiaomi sensors. My journey into home automation started in an attempt to give my wife more control as she is disabled and uses a wheelchair. The desire was for her to be able to switch on lights and let people in and have control over the temperature and ventilation. I was soon hooked and now consider myself a bit of a HA nut and have two of the blue t-shirts! I don’t have a coding or IT background but am not afraid of copying and pasting a bit of code and with the help of youtube, online forums like arduino and of course this beloved community! It’s been an amazing journey.
We built our current house just over 3 years ago and at the time we couldn’t afford any of the “smart” solutions out there and it quickly became apparent that the quotes to just build the house where way higher than the available funds so I decided to quit my day job as an a accounting and try to do it myself . The “smart” stuff very much took a back seat and I had a steep learning curve ahead of me. I’ve never looked back and it turns out that I am a much better builder than I ever was at accounting.
We now have the opportunity to do it all again and have just received planning permission for a new build in North West London. I’m doing the last few design changes before going into the nitty gritty of construction design…
I will of course be building the house myself again and doing pretty much everything from construction to electrics/plumbing so there really is an opportunity to push the boat out and go crazy but before I go mad with ideas I need to pin down the main infrastructure and that is where I was hoping to converse with some of you clever folk who have more knowledgeable about networks and things like modbus etc. My wife is very anti wifi so everything needs to be hard wired.
Of course HA will be at the heart of the whole house but I suspect I will have to upgrade from my Pi3 and SD card. There will be a good size utility room to locate the relays and stuff but I have absolutely zero experience or knowledge of where to even start with a totally hard wired architecture.
Some of the questions I have:
Do I wire mains to lights and have only low voltage to the switches?
I don’t even want switches really, an A-Lady (alexa) in the ceiling and a wall mounted tablet in each room would be much better in my opinion but I’m struggling to convince my wife to lose the switches completely.
Is the modbus protocol easy enough to pick up for a resourceful non programmer or is it really specialist?
What options are there for light switches and sensors and how easy is it to connect third party kit like curtain/blinds motors?
What suppliers do I need to look into and is modbus really a good route to go down?
…and then there are all the questions I don’t even know I should be asking…
Any tips or experiences would be greatly appreciated.
If anyone wants to show or talk about their set up I am all ears!
When the internet goes out the a-lady doesn’t work and your stuck in the dark. Keep the manual control option.
Also, not sure about the UK but some electrical codes will require the switches to be there. Also think about the eventual sale of your house, its going to be hard to sell to all but a select group of buyers without standard home features.
Good point about the electrical codes, I’ll have to check with our building regulations but although the A-lady doesn’t work with no internet, the tablets will work unless there is a power outage and then the lights wont work anyway.
But this is kind of irrelevant, if my wife wants switches then I’ll have to go with that. I don’t get much of a say when it comes to the wall paper either!
I’m more interested in what switch options there are or if I can just use standard switches, and how do they communicate with the relay etc…Do they switch the light and let the relay/HA know the new state or do they change the relay which then does the switching of the light?
We made a complete renovation on our house 2 years ago. My wife also insisted on wall switches… So after long search, I found this network relay modul, which can handle the wall switch.
It use low voltage (15V DC) on wall switch side. You must direct connection between relay and wall switch and direct connection between relay and light.
The control in my case:
I use HomeGenie before HomeAssistant. I create the TCP plugin for the relay in HomeGenie, but unfortunately HomeGenie development has been discontinued for a year.
So I built my home with HomeAssistant.
Now HomeGenie control my 3 network relays, and HomeGenie communicate with HomeAssistant over MQTT.
I guess I could stick with MQTT and get something like you used. At least MQTT is familiar and looking online something like this relay board is a cost effective option. How do you programme the relay board, can I use arduino IDE?
So the central relay board does all the high voltage switching and low voltage only to the switches, I thought so much but wasn’t sure if this is the best solution as this makes it impossible to change the light if HA is down?
Your relay board has no wall switch option, so you must create module for wall switches too.
My relay option works without Home Assistant or network. It can work standalone. It has own program on board and own app, if you want use it. It communicate over TCP. So HomeGenie can communicate with them over TCP. Query states and send turn on/off command. States publish MQTT.
If you building your own home, this is opportunity to save lots of money and headache and just wire everything directly. I would use normal light switches and add a low voltage relay in the box and then cat5 wires back to a central pi. I set that up 5 years ago and never had a problem with it. All the relays in the switch boxes are connect to a central relay bank, (cheap one on amazon) that can deliver the 12V and currents that all the relays need and activate on the Pi gpios.
I’m not familiar with HomeGenie, is it like HA and do I want to go down that rabbit hole? I don’t really want to introduce another service in the equation but I guess something needs to manage the TCP communication
Rob
I’m not sure if I understand how you are wiring the switches. Do you have relays at the switch location and another relay centrally?
How many of these relay boards can you hook up to the pi and how is the pi programmed? A pi per relay bank seems like alot of computing power, why have you chosen a pi over an arduino for example?
You will also need a 12V wall wart to power the relays in the switch boxes. I can show you the wring if you need. The total cost will be about $30 for controlling 16 lights / switches plus wire cost.
HomeGenie is a free home automatic software like HA. I’m not a programmer, I’m just an avid experimenter. HG based on C# language, so with this documentation I knew create a commuication plugin. Alpha smart relay command list
In HA, I can’t do this, I don’t know python language.
I think a programmer can easily write this in python based on this documentation, if someone like control relays directly from HA.
Where I live, the suggestions to add low-voltage relays to control mains-powered lights would never pass inspection unless the two are separated by a physical barrier within the J-box. It’s difficult to conform to this requirement when the intended purpose of the low-voltage side is to drive a relay controlling the high-voltage side!
One question. When you say your wife is anti-wifi, is there anything behind that? that could be addressed? Reason I ask is that particularly with mesh type systems you can get very good coverage at lower cost and with greater flexibility with wifi. Also her anti-wifi stance would that also preclude stuff like z-wave? With a good z-wave network you can get great coverage and flexibility by putting controllers into back-boxes, particularly for lights, window control and blinds. There are other technologies such as the 433 protocol which can also be used for controlling lights (power to the lights still being providing by conventional wiring).
I started with a typical large’ish 1970’s house (conventional wiring only) and by adopting certain technologies and solutions have been able to implement lighting, window, blind, and zonal heating control all without any additional wiring. I’ve also got movement, entertainment and security functionality again without the additional cost of wiring. All my solutions have been ‘retro’-fitted, but have conventional controls (switches etc), on the basis that any ‘normal’ person (aka visiting parent) should be able to understand and control without a phone or tablet, yet at the same time I can automate through HA. I do have voice control (via Alexa), but its a nice to have and all the main elements of the house are independent of internet connectivity. The acceptance and use by my wife has been essential to making it all work.
I do think it worth you considering a node-zero, location for your equipment (keeps it out of the way and secure). Also putting HA on a server allows you to easily go down the route of media server etc at very little marginal cost.
I started my home automation journey with Vera, but moved away from it due to stability and functionality. Over a six months period I’ve built and integrated all of the elements described. The help and direction of the HA community have been the reason it has been not only relatively easy, but also an inspiration. Don’t hesitate to call out, there is usually someone else who has experienced whatever is your current roadblock and is willing to help.
Happy to expand more if it would help, I’m based north of Brighton.
Rob
That’s certainly a cost effective solution but I will need hundreds of relays so this will be alot of fabricating and although the cost is a consideration it certainly is not at the top of the list and it will have to get past building regulations.
I’ve found this which I think will do the same thing as your set up slighly more costly but it’s all on one board and could potentially slot into some sort of rail maybe.
Taras
I’ve checked with my electrician about the UK regulations and waiting his responce… I may need to get in touch with someone that knows a bit more about this sort of wiring, I think it’s quite unique as I’ve mentioned my upcoming build to him before and he looked a little confused
Robin
Your house sounds alot like my current set up, loads of control with lots of different devices and protocols in play all OTA. My wife is against wifi for health reasons I guess and having all these devices is a necessary evil for her, the bedroom is a no go area and other than the a-lady nothing is wifi in there. She even insists that we turn the wifi off at night and when we go on holiday! So if a burglar breaks in while we’re away or sleeping I would not have any CCTV footage of it I know… makes the whole thing kinda pointless but I really don’t even want to get into that now. But frankly all that aside, it would be criminal to build a new house and not use the opportunity to wire it up to support central hardwired smartness!
There will still be wifi and zigbee device and over time I’ll add more stuff no doubt but the bulk of it needs to be wired.
Now, I’ve done some more research and KNX keeps coming up but sounds complicated, there’s Wago and Siemens devices but they make little sense to me at this stage, I’l have to look into this more but I have a feeling that Wago is something that could work, I will get in touch with them next week. Then there’s loxone but that looks more intergrated than I would probably need but maybe not. As I’m not that IT wizzy it may be good to get something with an infrastructure already in place instead of trying to build it myself. The railduino also looks really interesting and at least it’s a platform I’m kinda familiar with. https://sedtronic.eu/en/4-railduino
Anyway it’s early days and I’ve only just started looking into this. I’d love to know what kind of hardware professional guys who do home automation for a living use. There’s a Grand Design Show in May, I’ll try and pick their brains.
I did a search online and saw an article about health issues related to Wi-Fi. To me I don’t have any health issues at at. Maybe because I have a Ubiquiti UAP AC-Lite and have a smartphone and coffee maker connected to my network.
If your wife is sensitive to electromagnetic fields, then it makes sense to keep a distance of 40 feet away from the Wi-Fi router (or 10 feet minimum). 10 feet is 3 meters so 40 feet is 12 meters. Approximately.
Update: Another article about Wi-Fi and radiation:
Run conduit from all boxes and devices in a room to a central accessible box, then several conduits from that box to your main panel/automation area. Now you are set for whatever the future holds.
@lessmann which system did you decide on? I’m also starting a new construction and based in Europe and looking for a wired system.
What I require from the system:
Support for switches/buttons (one press, multiple presses, long press)
Control lights, with dimming
Control power outlets
Compatible with HA
No vendor dependency
I’d like to have wall switches so that I can program them to command any light or AC outlet in the house and use a wired system for this. I would then like to install some wired or wireless sensors for “intelligence” with HA. I have been recommended the free@home by ABB (Busch & Jaeger in some countries) but this is a closed system and switches need to be f@h compatible. Some threads here recommend Modbus but that seems outdated and also I’m lost on the basics of PLC stuff…
@porksoda I think the only wired, non vendor specific and not (yet ) outdated system is KNX.
Free@home is bound to one vendor and not compatible to Knx (it uses the same infrastructure and parts of the protocol).
Hager would have a Knx compatible line named “easy”.
I’m a little put off by the unipi PLC because of the NodeRed but other than that it is completely open source, easy to integrate into HA and has it’s own mini-forum. If you are confident in node-red then this is excellent. They do have other software but node red will be the easiest to link to HA.
I also still have the Loxone miniserver but not had a chance to set it up, the software looks a little more complicated than I had hoped but apparently it’s straight forward and with a DMX extension and some googling it looks very flexible and open to work with other products.Their tree topography does look very appealing though and I also really like their wall switches. What I’m less happy with is their support and customer service. They are totally useless to talk to and unless you have the time to go on one of their courses they are not willing to steer you in any direction for getting started.
Ive built a house before and honestly I would not have had time to do this on top of managing everything else so realistically I will probably go for Loxone and get a Loxone partner to set up the critical stuff (lighting, heating) to get the house up and running and then do the rest (sensors, blinds, automations) once I’m in.
I also think having something commercial like Loxone will help in future when selling the house, there are loads of electricians in europe that are familiar with it and can you imagine the complications of handing over an open source set up!
Thanks for the reply! It’s great that you mention Loxone, it is one of the greatest sources of my confusion. With KNX, I need to use a KNX-compatible cable to the switches. Loxone being “just a PLC” system can use mains cable to light switches/buttons, correct? On their site they recommend using CAT7, however I don’t think I’ve ever seen a light switch that is wired with CAT, so what am I missing? Additionally, I think I’ve seen people mention PLC systems with Raspberry Pi or Arduinos, is that possible and why not just do that if going down the PLC route, sounds cheaper?
There will be a good size utility room to locate the relays and stuff but I have absolutely zero experience or knowledge of where to even start with a totally hard wired architecture.
So after long search, I found this network relay modul, which can handle the wall switch.
HG based on C# language, so with this documentation I knew create a commuication plugin.
I know… makes the whole thing kinda pointless but I really don’t even want to get into that now. But frankly all that aside, it would be criminal to build a new house and not use the opportunity to wire it up to support central hardwired smartness!
) outdated system is KNX.