New Construction Recommendations

Hardware
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I’ve been a Home Assistant user for a few years now and it’s fantastic. I’ve sort of evolved from SmartThings to Hubitat and now to HA. That being said I have mish-mosh of different devices.

I’m finalizing plans for our new home and we will be breaking ground in the next couple of months. I’m looking to do a clean slate, with a fresh HA build and standardize what I can. I’ve already invested quite heavily in Unifi for network / security cams, Sonos for speakers and I’m leaning toward Leviton for the panel, outlets and switches. I want to steer away from battery devices and hardwire everything I can. Future proofing it while planning on adding HA voice capabilities when it’s released.

We’re reviewing electrical… so I really could use some recommendations for things that I should be consider as well as suggestions for good hardwired multi-sensors, smoke detectors, security, etc.

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Zwave or zigbee for infrastructure. Outlets, plugs and things that may last as long as the house. I prefer zwave.

All others devices wifi devices are subject to random manufacturer that decides they need subscription cash. There ate work arounds for this but an accidental upgrade or upgrade you thought would be harmless may lead to trouble.

Dont smart unnecessarily. I have lutron motions switches in bathrooms, pantry and laundry room. These dont need to be monitored or controlled. They should be ON when room in use and off when not and a cheap motion switch does that. I add a HA connected motion detector if i care about occupancy.

Light Switches should work if HA is down. It is rare but be prepared. If power is out who cares cuz there is no power anyway.

Add a UPS and expect to change batteries every 2 yrs at minimum. Maybe not necessary but I have bad electrical service so i say it needed

At this point wifi is as good as wired for communication or difficult camera locations. Dont get too caught up on “hard wire everything”. I did installs for years and was 100% hardware everything. Until moved into home with concrete(not block but 6" to 1ft poured concrete) walls, ceiling and floors. I wired most things but wifi works just as well in areas where wire was just not worth time/effort. On that note, in big enough house use multiple switches to save cable runs. I might run 3 cables but, for example, in my game room with 4tv, 4 game console, 1 AP, and other connections needed i may not have considered placing a switch in the room had wire runs been so difficult. Even multiple camera close to single location may be better served by switch closer to devices

EDIT

+1 for low voltage. Definitely outside and maybe inside

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If i had anything to do over in my latest build the thing I’m missing is good low voltage wire coverage.

I believe in wired network over wireless so I already have way more CAT5/6/7 than ill ever use, but I’d really like to not have to run my roller shades off battery. I’d have run 4 conductor (16ga or better) bell wire from a central location to the corner of EVERY door and window in addition to the wiring for a hard wired security system. (which yes I’d also do even if you don’t plan on a monitored system. Because you may not be the only resident forever and you can easily integrate most decent hardware security boards into HA with little effort

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Coming from a network architect and doing this, I would make the following recommendations:

Everything you can connect over Ethernet do. This means TVs, streaming devices, sound devices, wireless access points, computers, whatever, and plan on one or two extra jacks for places that you have entertainment. Heck, anything you think you only need 1 jack, I would pull 2.

Access Points are starting to come with multi-gig jacks on them or two physical Ethernet ports. So, I would pull at least two wires to every place with an access point and remember that one single access point is not going to cut it. You want to break up the area in various cells covered by access points. I have a small 768 sq ft house and I have 3 access points inside plus my garage. But, my walls are plaster and lath with drywall over them so walls really cut signal. Put access points on the ceiling if you can. The higher up, the better, and I would put them on each floor, kind of staggered around. You don’t want them directly over one-another. Stay away from meshing access points. Wiring them also gives you the possibility of Power over Ethernet if you have a PoE switch so you just run the Cat-6 wire and do not need a power.

I just moved my Home Assistant Raspberry PI up on a shelf about 7-feet high and noticed I get better range so if you can mount your device up high in the area, do, and I would centrally locate it as far as what you want covered. Remember things that are powered by mains will often repeat the signal outward.

Not sure of the code in your area but you want neutrals in every switch area. No line, load, ground. You want line, load, neutral and ground and if you do three-ways or more, make sure you have that traveler wire.

Speaking of Power over Ethernet, run what you can on it and I would make sure your network equipment has a dedicated circuit (or two if you are crazy like me) and I recommend a battery backup. Not sure of the power situation in your area but if you think storms or grid issues are going to shut you down, you might think about planning for an eventual generator, depending on how important power is to you.

You do not have to do all of this at once. But, wiring, now, with the walls uncovered is the time to do it. I can sympathize with you because the cost of network drops has substantially increased in price. Where I work, and we are a Fortune 500, we are just wiring Cat-6e. We see no need to go Cat-6a, 7 or 8. Unless you are talking really long distances, the added cost is not worth it since you can theoretically go up to 5GB/s on a Cat-6e wire.

You don’t have to go with the Multi-gig switches or WiFi 6E wireless access points if you do not want to. The only device I have that even has a 6GHz radio in it is my cell phone. It is most important to spend the money on getting the stuff behind the walls. Upgrades can be fun and can happen to the equipment connected to those wires down the road.

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Conduit everywhere.

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Single story home with crawl space it is actually very easy to run cable later. Exception being

Vaulted ceiling with no crawl space above it. Definitely have conduit or prewire this area.

When framers put the horizontal stud in the middle of opening between vertical studs.

Exterior wall. Can be done but since at lower section of roof requires face done in insulation, good technique and glow rods.

Fiberglass Insulated wall. Just messy but not that big a deal. Ive never dealt with foam wall but this is definitely not fun either.

Just adding this to say, plan what you can but if you miss something it wont be the end of the world.

Home with basement is same as above. 2 or more story adds some difficulty but usually you can get there using closets or other space as bridge.

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Not if your device is running ESPHome or your own code on Arduino. OTOH, I would never buy a device that requires cloud connection to work, let alone a subscription.

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I specifically meant Off the shelf not DIY
ESP is obviously not part of that group and anyone that couldn’t figure that out probably cant do DIY

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Many of the tuya “off the shelf” products (with esp, relatek, beken chips) are actually supported by ESPHome. :tada:

You can even buy them with esphome already installed like from athom :point_down:

https://www.athom.tech/esphome

I’m not aware of other solutions which allow full ownership over hardware and software that includes the right to repair/modify/extend etc. :raised_hands:

Beside espressif gave a longevity commitment which is quite rare for this area where manufactures often (intentionally?) don’t role out software updates adding new functions but rather want you to buy their newest product again that you essentially already own just for (software) added functions :man_facepalming:

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