Fresh new project 2019: some advice please?

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Hello HA community,

My first post and I’m looking for a lot of feedback and input.

Situation:

I am completely renovating an apartment. It’s a 2-bedroom apartment at the Belgian coast, that will be used by my family and me, but that will also be rented for periods of minimum 2 weeks. Obviously, I want to incorporate a healthy amount of home automation. This is a clean slate: I’m in planning stage but need to finalise in a week or two. Budget: if the investment makes sense and is reasonable, I’ll do it. I have already decided to go with Home assistant :-).

Personal Home Automation experience:

One large house with FIbaro/ZWave, which, quite honestly, has been and somewhat continues to be a pile of frustrations.

One small installation with OpenHab on a Ras Pi B3+: again, some frustrations since it’s ‘marketed’ as a solution that requires nu linux/technical skills, but reality was far from that and it proves to have unreliable elements. However, coming from ZWave, I was thrilled to see how easy it was to add IP based switches and plugs. So the more open nature is really an asset.

My biggest question:

For my first installation I decided for Fibaro and ZWave some 5 years ago. Back then that seemed to be the best solution. After 5 years, I have come to discover that ZWave is not as reliable as I would have hoped: nodes die, nodes go offline and need to be woken up manually, and most important: if for whatever reason, I want to change the central controller, I will have to first unpair and then pair the entire range of ZWave modules again to a new ZWave controller. As far as I know there is no way to avoid that? Given that I have over 150 modules, you can imagine the nightmare scenario this poses… I chose to call that "Controller lock-in".

Zigbee? No experience but I’m assuming the similar controller lock-in situation applies…

And then comes the wave of Wifi/ethernet modules that started to appear en masse lately (Sonof, Wemo, TP-Link and all the Chinese options that are flooding the market…). They seem cheaper, they use a protocol I’m familiar with and that I can more easily manage in my LAN with MAC/IP, etc… Most important: there’s no controller lock-in. The flip side: it’s Wifi, so there is an unreliability factor as well as a security risk.

Hence my question to the experts here: what do you recommend? Should I go with Zigbee or Zwave again? Or is it advisable to go to IP/Wifi based modules?

By the way: I know this was already discussed on the internet and somewhat here on this forum, but I wanted an UpToDate set of opinions from the HA enthusiasts and experts here.

Next Question: A call for inspiration and ideas:

I have a pretty good idea of what I would like to create as a setup, but outsider ideas are more than welcome. Here’s my current thinking:

  • All light points are controlled, many dimmable

  • LED strip light accents

  • Multi-Room audio. Not stuck on any particular brand, but I’m currently an Alexa user and would like some Alexa control over the audio, as well as Echo’s here and there for voice control of music/HA.

  • Door video camera

  • Connected door lock that allows me to activate/deactivate temporary access codes (and log code usage by for example cleaning staff) for tenants who rent for a few weeks.

  • Alarm system integrated with HA to be able to remotely activate and deactivate.

  • Heating control that allows me to control the apartment heating remotely.

Any other suggestions? Recommended solutions/equipment/modules/ do’s and don’ts?

Sorry for the long post, really looking forward to your thoughts!

Thank you,

AP

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Since Xiaomi, Ikea, Philips, and now recently Amazon went fully Zigbee, I think that’s the winning protocol. Plus WiFi,

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you have it all, maybe socket power control (each socket or the most important ones), and total energy consumption (like Efergy or similar solution). Then automate to reduce the total instant power used, and automate to consume when the KWh costs less (if your utility has this program, but soon all utility will have this kind of program).
If you don’t have solar panels and all the software that can be integrated in HASS.
I would also suggest equipment to have a WiFi mesh: so you will have two strong mesh: Zigbee and WiFi.

Of course a lot of automations, but that’s software.

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Oh, and of course room awareness, but until now haven’t found any device that works well for it

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Thank you,

Yes energy monitoring is part of the plan also, forgot to mention that. And yes, utility providers have had night/day tarif structures for ages now in Belgium.

Solar is not available unfortunately.

Good tip, thank you again.

AP

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Indeed I’m also doubtful about Zwave.

Do you have good experience with Zigbee? And WI-FI?

Thank you,
AP

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I find wifi devices drop off sometimes whereas my Z-Wave network has been rock solid. I think the main thing with Z-Wave is to have plenty of powered devices. All of my motion sensors for example are connected to USB power supplies so I’m not relying on battery powered devices which go to sleep.

I never have Z-Wave nodes drop out, on the other hand I do have wifi globes which tend to go ‘unavailable’ from time to time.

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ZIgbee does seem to be better than z-wave, and with solutions like conbee zha and zigbee2mqtt you do have some more open ‘hub’ alternatives. However getting rid of one and replacing with another still requires re-pairing.

Wifi is good for bulbs, switches and other devices that have a permanent power supply, but falls down on battery power.

The beauty of home assistant is that you can mix every approach and it looks the same. A bulb is a bulb is a bulb, whether it is wifi, zigbee, z-wave, rf or some other protocol. My zigbee sensors turn on wifi bulbs and hue bulbs.

If you are going wifi to any extent do get a decent AP. I started home automation with a stupid ISP provided modem/router/AP which (I kid you not) had a 16 wifi device hard limit. Well that doesn’t even work in a house full of teenagers [1], phones, laptops and so on, let alone a few wifi bulbs. I went ubiquiti AP and now my wifi is happy.

[1] Teenagers seem to consume wifi connections for lunch (they are never up for breakfast). Their friends all have devices too.

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Oh, if you are pulling the wall linings off in this renovation, more options do open up, like POE and so on.

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If you are opening up walls (as @nickrout mentioned) I strongly advise you to look at running neutral wires to light switches as this also allows a lot more options for smart switching devices to be installed later.

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I recently bought a home, and had to do a little bit of remodelling. A few things I would keep in mind (might be more to come, but I’m on my way out):

  • Wired power, not battery.
    • Especially if you will rent it; you don’t want all your sensors needing a battery change when someone else is living there.
  • Build some magnets into the walls.
    • I got an old Nexus 7 tablet, and if you do something similar, and out magnets into the wall (behind paint), you can through up your tablet for remote control (I use it mostly for guests) on select walls without having to have anything visible on the wall when it’s not there.
  • Actually, if I was to do a home from scratch, I’d hardwire everything if I could.
    • Not even use wifi/zigbee/BLE for any communication, if I could avoid it. Plan ahead, install the needed wiring in the walls, skip the wireless connections.
    • I’ve never had issues with z-wave (however, I only have maybe 6 or 7 units, and have heard about plenty of issues when you have many), but my zigbee sensors sometimes disconnect every now and then, and I need to press a button on them before they’ll reconnect. And for some of my WiFi switches, if the WiFi is out/rebooted, I need to power cycle them before they show up again. That’s all well and fine if you are there, not the worst thing (it happens rarely), but if you plan to rent, that would be a real nuisance.
    • I’ve never had issues with BLE devices, but I really don’t have that many, and none that I would even notice if they went offline.
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Given that you are in the EU, what about using HomeMatic IP kit? You can find information here - https://www.homematic-ip.com/produkte.html They have a wide range of RF and wired products, personally I have used the heating controls and find them very reliable if a little difficult to get started with. They also have modules that are direct replacements for French & German switch plates - I assume Belgian ones are the same?
You do need a controller, but it also integrates well with HA.

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I’m quickly going to chime in as well. We’re building a house atm in Belgium, and I’ve a small HA setup at home right now, nothing too fancy.
During the planning stages of the new house I wanted to go with full HA and wireless protocols as well, but in the end I settled and a more ‘stable’ approach: we’re now installing a KNX system in the entire house.
This KNX system will be the main backbone, and everything will be wired. HA will become a layer on top, adding things like for example Multiroom audio (which costs a fortune to do with KNX). This way, if your HA setup fails, or something else fails, people still have the main backbone to fall back to and use, allowing them to operate lights and basic stuff.
The advantage of using HA then is when things can’t be directly integrated with KNX (like multiroom audio, or cameras, or additional sensors which we didn’t plan ahead for whatever reason), you can easily integrate them later on.

This all depends on the fact that you are opening up your walls or not ofc…

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If you want a truely safe alarm system I would suggest getting a proper hard-wired alarm (they all have battery back-up as standard) which you can then interface to HA. This way it will work irrespective of whether HA is running fine or not. With a hard-wired alarm system you also then don’t have to have a heap of wireless sensors which may drop offline. They can still be interfaced into HA so you get the best of both worlds.

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Yes it really does depend on the degree of access for re-wiring. I agree wires are best.

KNX sounds good.

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Oh the other thing is, if you want to power your blinds/curtains, run wires, no one has power sockets above their windows!

If you want to have a smart refrigerator, run ethernet, cables across the kitchen floor are ugly.

If you want to have wall based controllers - tablets or whatever, they need power, they are ugly with wires running down the wall.

etc etc

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I have been using zwave for many many years (I think as long as it is around) and actually have the fewest problems with zwave compared to any other stuff (I have it all!). Maybe I have 1 module a year (max!) die on me.

But you are right, when you switch z wave controller (or zigbee) you get into a lot of work. Now the good news is that HASS actually supports the Fibaro hub and Vera Hub (and some others) so in my case I have some zwave devices running via hass (USB zwave stick) and some still on my Vera Hub. In theory this weakens the zwave network but I don’t have this (I have over 75 modules build in I think).

Especially in houses where wiring is already present I would still recommend using (preferably build in, mains powered), zwave for all you can and, then only use something else (for example HUE, or the cheaper chineese stuff, wifi devices etc,) if you do not have another choice.

If budget is of no concern and you have total plain start with wiring etc. you could consider KNX

Locks are still a problem. Very little choice in Europe or issues to get matching keys for other doors. For now I have given up on that altough I still use one Nemef ENTR which can be controlled by phone (but cannot be connected to HASS) in case someone forgets their keys…

Heating go for either Nest or (which I use now) honeywell Lyric. I have found these to be the most reliable, can be integrated in HASS but also work totally independent

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When I had Hue Bridge plus two Xiaomi Gateway (plus two WiFi) was a horrible experience, lots of interference.

So I dumped all the gateways and replaced with one Conbee (single Zigbee mesh) and one WIFi. Since then has been rock solid.

So it will depend on your environment, if you live in a small condo, with 10 condos nearby all full of WiFi routers (and now they all start with Zigbee too: everybody is getting a Hue bulb or Tradfri lamp), then you may have a problem with Zigbee (Zigbee share same frequencies with WiFi), and in that case ZWave is your best solution.

Otherwise I think Zigbee is the way to go: good technology and way cheaper then Zwave

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Zwave for me is technically the best: a somewhat free 900MHz band which has a wider range compared to 2,.4MHz, and open for all manufacturers with a single protocol.
Problem is they were/are very bad a marketing: its simply TOO EXPENSIVE, and I blame it to the fees that manufacturers have to pay to the consortium.

Door or motion sensors at 50Euro + ? Common. Same from Zigbee at 10-15 Maximum … that’s a huge difference

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For build in most of mine are Fibaro and Quibino. Sensors (motion, door, water etc) I have from any brand. Chinees webshops have many cheap ones that work really well. I have tested most of these. Zwave doorsensor for 15,-…