Hey there, I am as green as they get to smart homes but would like to consider HA as a viable option for my new home. Located in the Midwest in the USA.
For history, I used Control4 in a new build about 8 years ago, and didn’t like the fact that I had to go back the installer/programmer every time I wanted to add a device or change programming. Also, anytime we had a problem there was no backup hardwired switching. My wife would freak out if she couldn’t do something because Control4 locked up.
I have had Lutron Caseta, Ring cameras, Sonos, and Brilliant controllers in another subsequent house but not everything talked together seamlessly.
Requirements:
Need to have hardwired/physical switches that work if there is a network or smart home problem.
Prefer to use hardware that is accessible in the United States and won’t confuse electricians or AV people if I choose it.
Want to have on premise cameras, no subscriptions.
I am not very technical, but I am a quick learner.
Have not done any home automation things in the past other than Control4 lights on timers.
I feel like most of the videos I have watched on YouTube are non-US users of HA. Is that an appropriate assessment?
Any guidance is appreciated. I would love to use devices and manufacturers that are known locally. For example, Sonos (sound), Lutron (lights), Hunter Douglas PowerView (shades), etc.
I don’t love the idea of being dependent on a certain home controller/intaller/programmer like Control4, Vantage, Crestron, etc.
These forums have lots of suggestions. I would begin by using the search function and search for: “new home build”
I think all your requirements can be met but there are pros and cons that you will have to research for your specific budget, performance, etc. Note: there are A LOT of options.
Whatever you consider, check the Home Assistant Integrations area to see if the device you are considering is supported by Home Assistant. Ideally, you want to use devices and integrations that do not require a cloud connection/subscription - they work locally without an internet connection.
Also, depending on how complex, number of devices, types of devices, etc., you will need appropriate hardware (network, server, etc.) to support Home Assistant.
Any YouTube videos will be relevant regardless of the country of origin but try to use the most recent videos - Home Assistant has progressed pretty fast so videos over 1-2 years old will be out-of-date. There is also the Getting Started page for starters…
Looking forward to hearing any additional questions and what you decide.
Welcome! Some people wont tell you the truth on here but, I will! For the majority of people in your shoes, you will fall into 1 of 2 categories. 1. The learning curve is too steep, its overwhelming and you give up. 2. You get completely hooked like a crack head and your last name is Biden!
Like the orher person said, for videos ot doesn’t matter if the person that made it is from EU. Obviously if they’re talking about a piece of hardware thats for the EU or they are telling you how to wire some device to mains AC, those are some exceptions. Its not really different for us in the US or those elsewhere.
Im not very familiar with Lutron Caseta but, i know they are top of the line switches. If they meet your needs and are locally controlled or can be made to do that and they dont break your budget, go with those. Ive mainly stuck with Shelly switches/relays. They do have an app/cloud you can use or you can opt to do local control with a few setting changes. They are good quality and respected by other users here.
The good thing about using HA is you arent held hostage by an internet outage or some third party server farm located in S. Korea or wherever you need to be connected inorder to turn on some lights. You own and have your hardware in the house and you only need power. Thats of the things i like about Shelly. They allow you to set up redundancy options to control the devices. Say HA goes down, you lost your HD and cant use it. You can still control things from any pc or phone by using mqtt or http.
The one piece of advice i will give you is. The thing that makes HA so awesome is the ability to keep things local. If you primarily use devices or hardware that does use subscriptions or proprietary apps or even incorporating Google/Alexa into everything then you are giving up the best feature of HA.
There was a guy on here recently, he made a post complaining about Alexa because his “high water” sensor and ultimately automation to turn on the sump pump was dependent on Alexa and it had an issue, it couldnt connect to HQ so no automation would start and his basement flooded.
If I were building a new house, I’d make sure I hardwire as much as I could think to wire. The hard wiring sets the foundation for any smart home. While you can fine wireless technology for most things, hardwire contact sensors are better than wireless ones. Also hardwire ethernet to bedrooms and audio locations is a good idea. If you have young kids. they’ll be thankful you did when they get heavy into gaming. You can always fill in area’s you didn’t think about with wireless technology.
You need power for any camera, so Power Over Ethernet gives you better data transfer from the camera. You use the same ethernet cable for power and data. For outside camera’s you should also wire for a light source offset from the camera. If your light source is on the camera, you’ll get to watch spiders make webs all summer.
By default, sensors put in place for a smart house give you most of what you need for a security system. This post gives some suggestion on setting up cellular as a backup for the security part of your system. One thing that is helpful is having your HA controller centrally located in the house, in case you decide to use zigbee or zwave for some devices. If you want the security system capabilities then you should also think about battery backup for devices you consider to be essential for security. This post gives some information on integrating hard wired contact sensors using GPIO pins on you controller board,
I’d consider myself pretty new also and had some very similar concerns. I went with Home Assistant on a raspberry Pi and am very happy with the setup. Primarily, I wanted to make sure everything was able to be “manally controlled” for visitors, parents, and the less-excited wife. I started with all of the existing light switches in the house. I didn’t go the Lutron route (although i’m sure there’s an integration that will work) but i did buy a bunch smart light switches - physical switches that go in the wall - and replaced most all of the existing switches in the house with them. I’m no electrician, but there was really nothing to it. Connect with wire nuts like presumably most everything else in the US. I’d hope any decent electrician would have no problem wiring them at all. The smart switches I added all work through the Tuya integration - very simple to add it, and it works pretty seamlessly. I’ve expanded significantly since putting those in. the system is easy to add to.
one thing to mention after seeing some of the replies: working “locally” just means that you don’t need an internet connection to use the device with HA - it will function just with your local network. You didn’t list that in your initial post and people may be mixing it up with your desire for things to have a hard-wired backup, just thought I’d mention that. Your usage data, etc. doesn’t go out to a 3rd party. That may or may not be important to you.
You should also make sure you put a good FW at your network gateway so you can use openVPN to get secure remote access to your smart house. Opnsense is a good option. Also buy yourself a domain name you control for use in setting up dynamic DNS for your home access. You’ll need a domain provide such as easyDNS, one of meany DNS providers that support dynamic DNS. There are also a number of companies that will give you a third level domain for free or at a low cost for dynamic DNS.
NO! You didn’t read all the posts. The sump pump was not part of the automation in any way. My complaint, since you didn’t read the post, was that my alarm that Alexa was supposed to announce did not because Amazon requires a cookie be refreshed periodically- at random times. Because of this the alarm never got sent. That SPOF has been fixed.
The first three items on your list are easily accommodated in Home Assistant. But if you ask ten people here for any design suggestions, you will get fifteen correct answers. All different.
Home Assistant can be an endless rabbit hole. I have almost 100 devices around my house, and all of it is wife-approved.
So, your first step will be to make a list of what you want a smart house to do? Then we can go from there.
You should also think about power monitoring. It’s a lot easier to set things up when you’re putting the house together. I’d look at instrumenting the breaker box as the starting point. At a minimum it would be good to have centralized monitors in the breaker box for all your big appliance circuits.
Having the ability to control your HAVC allows you implement dynamic smart controls of your heating and air. So instead of taking action based on just time of day, you can do things based on when the house is empty or about to be occupied.
Here are some ideas. Not collectively exhaustive.
1/ Security system - remote arming, on/off automation (I have always had remote monitoring, not sure if that is how security works with HA)
2/ Lighting scenes - by room, activity, all off/all on
3/ Music scenes - party, background, relax
4/ Home theater scene - “watch movie” triggers drop down screen, dimming lights, etc.
5/ Exterior lighting scenes, Christmas lights, exterior switches
6/ Voice controllers / LCD control panels
7/ Energy management - don’t know where to start but sounds cool for sure
8/ Motion sensors, for bathroom lights or stairways at night for example
9/ Security cameras / doorbell - exterior and garage, connected to AppleTVs so we can put on our TVs, pop up with activity on TV or LCD panels throughout house
10/ Smart shades - open and close at certain times of the day
11/ Laundry alerts and turn off dryer when leaving the house
12/ Water sensors
13/ Temperature sensors to check for freezing or high temperatures
14/ Smart plugs or smart bulbs? or combination? for lamps, lighting, Christmas lights, etc.
15/ I read somewhere about bathroom vent fans and humidity sensors. I never like using those, so if it turned on when I left that would be great.
I want to be thorough since I know this will be the easiest time to do this, but its overwhelming since the house is almost finished framing and we are about to start the electrical rough in.
That ended up being a lot! Thanks for the help everyone.
I feel ya on physical controls for family and friends (and wife) as needed! Yes, on local I like that aspect and not having to pay subscriptions and be dependent on others to fix problems or make improvements.
You can never have too much ethernet. Designate a server closet (mine is in the basement) and run multiple Ethernet cables from every room to the server closet.
In this photo, there are low voltage cables, probably TV coax here, but Ethernet is installed the same way. The orange box is the low-voltage stuff. You can tell the drywall finisher to cover those orange boxes. Take photos so that when you decide that you need Ethernet at that location, you will know where to cut the sheetrock. Since it’s low-voltage, it’s legal in most communities in the US for the homeowner to install it themselves. Just avoid running alongside high-voltage wiring. Personally, I would also put Ethernet cables next to the switch boxes. Don’t forget the ceilings. You may want to put POE Access Points in the ceilings some day. You probably won’t use everything, but running the cables while the framing is exposed is far, far cheaper than running it after the walls are finished. Oh, also plan on 36" pigtails.
By the way, the National Electric Code requires high-voltage wiring (110-220V) in the walls to be secured to the studs. Most do it with staples. This is NOT required for low-voltage wiring, but I would use painters tape to hold the cables in the middle of the studs. This would protect them from being pinched by the drywall or damaged from drywall screws.
OFF TOPIC- but if I were building a new house, I would insulate the interior bathroom walls, ceiling and if able the floor.
Another thing you need to think about is what switch tech you’re going to use. In a new house you shouldn’t end up like me, having a mix of switch types. My wife likes switches she can fell. I like touch switches as you can then use one switch to do multiple things. With a touch switch, instead of just on and off, you have different types of presses: long, medium, short and double tap. In reality with the right touch switch you can program in anything you can think of. I’ve use the following three types of switches in my house:
I use the original shelly 1, but if I were buying today I would probably get the shelly plus 1PM. The shelly’s are nice as you can use them with any standard wall switch that would already be in a house. You can place them either directly behind the switch or at the other end at the wall outlet or light fixture. They can be made to work with any switch setup, 1 switch, 2 switches (known as 3 way switch in US), 3 switches, etc. These new ones also include power monitoring, which is nice. My two issues with the shelly product are:
you only have on and off like a normal wall switch.
I’ve had problems twice where because of how they sit in the junction box the wifi was iffy for smart house control. For the most part they are spot on and I expect with the right placement of a meshed wifi system this would not be an issue.
Shelly has multiple options, like ones that sit behind a dimmer switch, control roller window shades, etc. They also have power monitoring capabilities for your junction box. A nice thing about shelly is they historically haven’t required you to use their app to set them up. While they have a cloud interface, you don’t have to use it. So fully disconnected from all the spy connections. Nice!
TP link also sells the Kasa line of smart switches and plugs. I have a number in my house and have been very happy with them. They are a little easier to install then the shelly products. That said they don’t have the same level of functionality as the shelly switches. They also require you to use their app to set them up. Once you have them set up you can block their internet access with you gateway FW and then just use them disconnected from the manufacture’s site. I don’t like devices that require you to connect to their cloud. These don’t require cloud connectivity, you just need their app to set them up.
The last one on my list is the Sonoff TX line of switches. I like these because they are touch switches with internal relays. They are based on the esp chips. With a small amount of effort they can be flashed with esphome, which gives you total control of the switch. I really like these as you can use them directly as switches, or you can use them as just touch pad inputs to your smart house controller. So first you can use them just like the other two I mentioned above. Alternatively you can use them as a smart switch in the wall that just talks with the smart house controller telling it the type of touch that happened. This link is about using an esp3 to build a smart 3 way bulb lamp. In this link I talk about using the sonoff switch to provide a second method for controlling the lamp. It might be something to look at just to get an idea of what you can do with this type of switch. My wife likes the different touch capabilities of these switches, but she really prefers a tactile switch.
All primary players in the house need to be in agreement on the smart technology you choose.
