Ideas for new home design lighting

Hardware
1

Hi all,

I am planning to build my new home and I would love your advise and different opinions about lighting. My use case is controlling every single light (led, downlight mainly) with HA using MQTT as the only control protocol. Must have features are dimming, power consumption monitor, etc.
Because of I am designing the system, I have not constraints like my home was already built (cabling, electrical boxes, etc.) Throughout the design process I have different options:

  • Using traditional wall push buttons (not smart). Each room will have its own relay box and controller to provide the intelligence and MQTT. For this option I have considered DIY and commercial products, Shelly 4 Pro fits in most of my use cases, but still not have wire ethernet (nice to have for better security and availability of the system). I still need to add Shelly Led for dimming features.

  • Using smart wall switches for each circuit like sonoff, xiaomi, etc. Probably this option is better suited for stablished homes and not so optimal for new build homes.

With regards to the light technology, I am planning 100% led (strips, downlight, GU-10s, etc.). Should you consider a central DC power supply per room that feeds every light circuit of that room? I like this approach (don’t need to buy led lights with driver embedded), but cabling may be tougher then.

I would love to hear your opinions, pros and cons.
Thanks

2

If you’re building, the best and often repeated advice is to ask your electrician to bring neutral wires to each and every switch location. That way you have great flexibly of device used in future.

If you go for a distributed access point wifi system like Ubiqiti wifi APs this will not be an issue. By all means plan for and install LAN cabling to rooms but also design in a few locations where the LAN cables can terminate at wifi access points.

Honsestly, if you can afford it, yes. Absolutely do a dual wire a AC + DC system. For two reasons:

  1. You can do 12 or 24V re-wiring yourself if needed. No need for an electrician to make small changes.
  2. Not having 240V AC to 12/24V DC PSUs everywhere is probably going to be a money saver in the long run. Though a lot of stuff may require 5V. Pick the voltage for the systems you are going to use.