Is it worth paying someone to provide detailed plan for Smart Home

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Hi All,

We doing a major renovation in (Brisbane, Australia) almost like building a new house. I have been doing lot of planning about the house materials and so on with my builder, but he has no idea about Smart home or the technologies.

I currently have very basic mini PC, Home Assistant setup at home and working well.

I have done some research and some company is willing to design the Smart home automation and provide the following for about $2k.

  • Marked up drawings indicating hardware placement and wiring;
  • Materials list; and
  • First basic automation list.

Is it really worth spending that money asking someone else to do it?
I can research and spend bit of time, but I don’t have the knowledge what will work with what and so on.
Going little bit crazy thinking about all these is getting overwhelming.

Could you please advise if others have been in similar approach and how they have handled it?

If it helps, I do have and can provide the architectural drawings of the house and also my plan of where all the sensors, Fan, power points and other relevant things.

Thank you very much.

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In my opinion, a smart home is a hobby. If you are not able or more importantly willing to make it yourself you will be disappointed with the results in a very short period of time. No sooner have you paid someone to build it for you you will find another thing you want.

That being said if you have the money to pay someone to start it off for you and you can maintain and modify it that may work for you.

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3

Then don’t automate.
Keep in mind, setting it all up is only a (small) part of the story, it also has to just freakin’ work for the next 30-50 years - and if you sell the house, someone else will have to make sense out of it as well. Even if you do want to go this route, you will have to ‘maintain’ your smarthome, keeping the interfaces updated, replacing broken gear (even if the exact same model no longer exists and needs to be implemented differently), extending it as you go.

As an UI, from an ergonomic point of view, a stupid 120 year old light switch is hard to beat…

All that aside, it’s impossible to evaluate the price, without the details what that entails in size, given environment, building codes and scope.

Even if you decide against automating, there are four things you can -and should- do nevertheless.

  • you can never have enough electrical outlets
    • splitting between lighting and sockets on the RCD/ line breaker level does make sense
    • no ring busses for outlets
    • star topology, split the electrical circuits (so one blown fuse (hello lawn mower, etc.) doesn’t darken the whole house, crash your computers)
  • bring all three cables into each switch location (not just the switched hot wire (Ln), but also neutral (N) and ground (PEN))
  • ethernet, plenty
    • every room (at least twice, to opposing walls)
    • think about the location for wall/ ceiling APs (they really want an ethernet port)
    • think about an ethernet port to a control cabinet (relais and stuff) near the doors
  • the 80s trend of push-buttons and latching relays (Eltako and friends) in central’ish (maybe one per room) control cabinets wasn’t the worst idea, because it marries ‘old’ tech with an opportunity for smarthome features, in a way to keep things sensible for old fashioned sparkies, while still allowing gradual smarthome access (gently tapping into these controls).

Only you can decide what features you want to accomplish - and how. Just keep in mind, your house needs to keep working while you’re away (so the rest of your family needs to be able to retain core functionality when stuff breaks, think of this like replacing a light bulb), it needs to be cold-boot capable (power losses and internet outtages happen, it needs to come up on itself again), it needs to keep working if you won’t return (divorce, death, …) - and potential future buyers need to be able to take it over sensibly.

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Don’t, if you haven’t planned it your self, you will be “somehow” depended upon Support for this !
" Inspect Your house ", decide where Want/Need TP Outlets/Wiring(in separate Tubes ! ), and where your Main-Controller should “live” ( Servers etc. )
Think, What can be Wired, Should be Wired ( Minimize OTA Traffic )

Initially InWall outlets for i.e Light Switches Can be expensive, But Install the Electricity “Outlet-Housing” so they are Deep enough for "Smart " Dimmers/Contacts , and also for an Extra Tube from your TP-Wiring Network, Where Suitable/Needed.

I wouldn’t go for Smart Bulbs, Partly as they are more expensive, the can also be a Pita to troubleshoot / And reliability , So such should only be " Where needed/Suitable "

A Basic Mini PC, Sounds like it can Live a Long Life, but you haven’t Specs-It, Also It depends Upon your “Ideas” And Plans

Material List, Cat 6 -Cables In Common Cable Tubes ( +22mm )
Switches / Wifi-AP’s Again , Inspect Your House and Find Strategical / Suitable Places
Switches Should Minimize Cable length, And have a Strong “Backbone” i.e 10Gb, but 1Gb Will be sufficient in several place, depending upon which equipment/Devices is connected
Wifi AP’s Should Primarily Be for Spread/Distant Devices and for a seamless “mobile/wearable” Experience
Router / AP’s / Switches , Read up upon some of the various Brands In AU, if you decide to buy a “Suit”

Automations / Configurations etc. etc. etc. That’s what the Communities are For, And as Mentioned in above Posts, You will feel much more Comfortable and Satisfied, If you take the Lead, And know Your System

PS: You do know there is a AU-Community in FB for HA ? ( I don’t use FB my self )
Redirecting... .
A Search in here
Search results for 'Australia order:latest' - Home Assistant Community .

Note:

Please send me Half of the Fee , which your “Contractor” Offered :grin:

Copy a bunch of your House-Drawings and start “the doodle” , Draw your own sketches, And take Pictures , For The Electricians ( While they know how to draw cables etc ) A Network is A Network

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There is some good advice here. I’m a DIY guy and certified Geek, so I want to design, install, and control everything myself.

The only subject I would add to the current thread is… think about cameras. A central POE switch and wired cameras is the way to go. Pre-wire for locations where you think you would like a camera (interior and exterior - now and future use). I had 13 cameras in my last home, and have managed to cut that to 6 in my current home, but I can keep an eye on everything, including my dog when I am away and others are caring for him. After many brands and a Blue Iris backbone, I have now settled on Reolink for their exceptional price/performance and excellent integration into Home Assistant.

Just sayin’

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If I had to rely on someone else, I think I would go for KNX but I don’t know how smart you can make that.
KNX is rock solid, can be maintained by others, adds value to the house when selling it but… be prepared for the bill!

Hardware only is already a multitude of DIY with HA.

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Thank you very much guys for amazing feedback. Really lot to think about, research, research, plan and plan.

As most of you have said and I was planning on to do the below anyway.

  1. Ethernet cables everywhere like 2 per room as a minimum.
  2. Ethernet powered devices like security cameras (hoping to go with unifi as I heard really good things)
    Currently do have Reolink and I am quite happy with it, but I heard Unifi has facial recognition and better camera and UI and so on.
    Any suggestions on that?
  3. I was thinking about making it completely as Local as possible.
  4. Basic Dimmable LED lights with normal switches but with Shelly Dimmers at the back, so will still work as dumb switches. (But each Gen 3 dimmer is about 65$ per switch which will get very expensive quickly.) Are there other cheaper options?
  5. Planning to get Aqara U400 because of UWB feature and read really good reviews. What do you guys suggest?
  6. For Rack mount options, thinking to put it under the stairs area. How big do I go for?
  7. For curtains or blinds, I am thinking to put Powerpoints nearby to when and if I ever want to automate them I can do that. Is that good idea?
  8. Is Unifi Access Points are good options?
  9. Also thinking to go with Ethernet 6. That should be sufficient.
  10. Speaker wires where possible and leave them in ceiling and mark to use in future.
  11. Also is sensors really needed in the Bedrooms for lights? As I been reading it can get complicated to design when and how they should be work. Or leave it with normal?
  12. Currently I really want to plan for the wires to put them everywhere so when I decide later on to buy devices (battery/powered) or so will have them ready.

I will keep planning and hoping to ask some feedback and my decisions on wiring and devices and so on.

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Plan at least 2 drops per room, 1 in each opposite corner. Nothing worse than trying to install a new device & realising the closest ethernet cable is on the other side of the room.
You don’t have to populate each drop with cables right now, as long as you leave a pull-wire and have sufficient conduit space.

Cat 6 should be fine. It’s cheap enough & it should do 10Gbps up to 55m. Considering most devices like TVs still come with 100Mbps ethernet ports in 2026, I’d say you’re future-proof enough. Just make sure you’re using solid copper cable and stay away from anything which mentions CCA.

Also, remember that “ethernet” cable can be used for a variety of stuff apart from just ethernet. Besides PoE, you can use it for virtually anything, like audio/video distribution or extending IR & USB.

I’d recommend you stick with Shelly. You don’t need to install the dimmers right now since they’re made for retrofitting. Just keep an eye out for their sales, then jump in when the time is right.
Only thing you need to plan right now is to ensure the back box behind each switch is deep enough.
Edit: If you’re still undecided whether you’ll be going for Wifi, Zigbee or Matter, get the Gen4 stuff. It’s only a couple more extra bucks, but you get to choose which protocol suits you best without having to replace devices in the future.

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Thank you for the feedback. I did not know this “audio/video distribution or extending IR & USB.” Good to know.

As off now, I am thinking Zigbee as it has the most devices.
I will go with Shelly dimmer as I am currently very happy with them and very easy to use and makes dumb switches and lights SMART :slight_smile:

Yes current plan is wire everywhere and then go from there.

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10

Since your doing such a big renovation: you might have a look at ethernet based relay boards to control stuff from your fuse box instead of scattering devices.

There are some examples here on the forum.

11

Regarding your item 6… under the staircase was my solution as well. There happened to be another coat closet less than 10 feet away anyhow.

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Inside the rack I have a UPS in the top, followed by a couple of generic switches, a patch panel, another switch, my Synology NAS, my weather station display, a rack mounted Dell PC (running HAOS), my audio mixer, a Bluetooth unit, an audio amplifier, followed by my Carver Stereo gear.

On top of everything is my eero router, a 22" Touch Screen and wireless keyboard (running on the HAOS PC below) an Echo Dot and my HA Voice Preview Edition (being fed into the audio mixer below).

You can never have too much rack space… you’ll find something to put there, trust me.

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