I am starting to design my HA/ smart home setup. We are working on our own newly build home, so now we are running the question; how can we trigger certain actions like lights. (or maybe something else in the future)
Basicly we want to be able to switch lights in certain rooms based on actions like movement or doors opening/closing. One thing me and my BF are not looking forward to is a lot of different sensors all glued to the wall with dubble sided tape and battery’s that need to be changed every now and then. We want it to be smart, so we don’t want to use a lot of light switches. (maybe for our parents babysitting our house every now and then but not for us)
Just like i said, we are working on our newly build home, so we are still able to run cables and install wall boxes.
So what i am looking for is HA compatible sensors like door or movement sensors that are powered by wire and maybe even controllable by the wire.
Does this even exist, if yes can you recommend and share links/tips?
You could use reed-type wired devices for contact sensors and connect them to something like Konnected.io. However, there’s a reason why even professional alarm/automation companies have transitioned largely over to wireless sensors. This can get very costly, very quickly. Not to mention the complex setup of terminating the wires to something that can process all the signals. Not to mention the fact that wired motion sensors are just UGLY (imho).
Personally, I ditched wired sensors years ago and went to wireless. With brands like Aqara that produce some really tiny sensors (the door/contact sensors blend into white doors really well and the temp/humidity sensors can be stashed away out of sight) with long battery life, it’s pretty easy to create a smart home without it looking all “techy”.
For most of my motion sensors, I use Hue motion sensors and have painted some of them to match the wall colors. The battery life on those is also fantastic (I have a couple that have been going 2+ years on the same AAA batteries they came with). I’ve also seen some clever tricks to hiding motion sensors in the ceiling by just exposing the PIR sensor and the small hole for the lux sensor and then sealing that up in the drywall.
Other than a 16 or more channel relay to stack if things are to be wired new based on the number of sensors you intend to wire up.
Your next best option is to look at smart switches that include a Motion/PIR sensor when it comes to light control in various rooms if you don’t want a separate sensor mounted; say a ceiling mounted motion sensor for the room.
Else you are looking at getting battery eliminators for supporting devices you want to power via a nearby power socket with a USB wallwart.
You could use something like this and program with ESPhome. Wire in whatever sensors / reed switches etc that you want. (They have other versions with differing I/O as well)
I hadn’t seen Konnected or Aquare before. Konnected seems to have a good selection of burgular alarm type wired sensors at reasonable prices.
Some other suggestions:
Scan the list of Integrations on the HA website. Also check out the integrations on HACS. Often new things or things I didn’t notice before pop up that are worth a look. These will, of course, already be integrated with HA.
Search on Amazon/EBay/??? for “human presence”, “IR sensor”, “occupancy”, or even “radar sensor”. You’ll be astonshed at how much stuff comes up. Then you can filter based on whether you prefer COTS at a reasonable price or more DIY-friendly stuff. I bought several different types of the radar sensors to evaluate but haven’t tried them out yet. (I want a bathroom sensor that works regardless of whether I’m showering or just making a pit stop.) The DIY oriented stuff generally requires 3/5V power and have a wired output intended to be attached to a separate controller that decides what to do when they detect something. I’ve found a lot of “radar” type sensors available really cheap on Amazon or EBay. Many claim to work when placed behind drywall, which is believable for the lower frequency ones. Some claim to be able to monitor several narrow zones to detect motion. But, definitely caveat emptor.
You didn’t mention analog sensors. They have special considerations if you’ll be running long wires. I can explain but my reply is TL;DR already.
You didn’t mention what the sensors would be connected to, but as Bill described, controller wiring is a major consideration. If you’re DIY oriented then I’d point you to RPi or make your own Teensy based controller. (I like SparkFun’s QWICC I2C stuff when cobbling a Teensy controller together.) Lots of I/O (i.e. lots of sensors per controller) and easy ways to do wired or wireless TCP/IP/MQTT, even PoE (which I think will be the “go-to” for wired infrastructure). There’s a project on CrowdSupply called “GetWired” I bookmarked a while ago that might be worth a look.
I can’t dispute what Bill said about why wireless has become the “go-to” approach for contractors and many DIY’ers. As time passes however I’m becoming even more focused on 100% wired infrastructure. I should probably buy stock in whomever makes Smurf conduit, since I’m running that virtually everywhere. The idea is to make it both future-proof AND retro-proof in case I get creamed by a bus and a normal electrician needs to come in to fix something for my wife or kids. I’m also replacing the track lighting with theater grade DMX controlled stage lighting (Industrial Chic). No doubt, however, wireless is much easier in many ways.
Another option is something like this. It is something new myself and a few other people have been working on for a few years, and I have just built my own new home and implemented it throughout.
The general idea is to use ESP based rack mounted devices with RJ45 ports along the front, which look similar to a standard rack mounted network switch.
You then run CAT5/6 cables from all your doors/windows/PIRs back to your rack, and terminate them in a standard RJ45 patch panel (like you do for normal ethernet runs).
You can then patch these to your OXRS Security Module. This will send 12V/GND down 4 of the wires, leaving 4 data wires. You can therefore power your PIR or active sensors as well as monitor their state and tamper switches etc.
I have a 32x port security module in my house and it is working fantastically well. The OXRS firmware generates MQTT payloads in JSON format. I am using cheap Chinese 12V PIRs, reed sensors and active flood sensors throughout.
If anyone has any questions I would be happy to share more details .
Just to put it out there. You dont have to use HA and take a look at Loxone. Its pretty much what are you looking for. It is whole separate ecosystem, but everything can be wired and it is much more industrial driven (certified, wired, DIN mountable etc).
There seem to be a lot of BACNet things showing up on EBay or Amazon at reasonable prices now. It's generally all discontinued items (i.e. the previous generation stuff) but all quite usable. Simple buttons, 2/3/4/5/8 button scene controllers, time delayed light switches, dimmers, relay controlled outlets, occupancy sensors, even digital/analog I/O.
These generally connect via vendor proprietary busses but all have a vendor <> BACNet bridge device you can hook up to access the vendor endpoints as BACNet entities. BACNet has traditionally been RS485 based but more endpoints (e.g. switch) are adopting BACNet/IP as connection. BACNet <> BACNet/IP bridges.
Prices are often << the original outrageous commercial pricing. I'm continuing my deployment of DIY PoE wall switches and lighting but am going to make them identify as BACNet endpoints instead of my self-rolled Webhook based communications protocol. Eventually I'll probably replace the wall switches and tough panels with COTS BACNet devices so it can be serviced if I get hit by a bus.
You didn't say where you are building. A lot of building methods do not allow for easy retrofits where patching and conduit runs can be a distinct turnoff when adding sensors.
I agree with 8 core wiring (Cat6/7,8 etc) to each and every room, going back to a facilities rack/cupboard is going to save you a lot of grief in the future.
Plus, in a hurricane or flood, a lot of copper wire is going to hold your house together.
Experience has shown that wireless is so tempting, so unreliable, and prone to software updates that are buggy. Pay the small added cost up front and reap the benefits long term.
Planning is so important. You know you will need sensors in a lot of rooms. As your needs expand and change, having a wire already present inside the wall is going to make it far easier to upgrade and install new technology.
Using your wiring for Ethernet, POE, custom wiring, BACNet, RS485, video, anything doesn't matter - they all work with twisted pair cabling.
Don't forget wiring to your roof space and underfloor, especially for security devices.
Having a pre-wired smart home is also going to add to resale value in the future.
When nearly every second post after a core update has the letter "Z" in it, should I worry? The industry might be maturing, but reliability still has a very long way to go to get to the set and forget stage.
Chill, the paragraph about wind and water was an attempt at light-heartedness.
The original house may have been built by now, but the advice may be relevant for other readers.
I'm in the Colorado mountains. I had a gigantic water leak a while ago that pretty much totaled the interior spaces. Oddly enough, it wasn't a frozen pipe. It was a sweated connection that lasted 50 years until a vanity HW shutoff valve simply popped cleanly off. It looked like a few thousand H/C cycles propagated a crack that finally caused the joint to fail. Anyway, I was not at home and 12,000 gallons later I returned and shut off the water.
So I have the luxury of complete access without any annoying drywall in the way. I've done all the architectural/interior/mech/elect/plumbing design myself along with doing / supervising the installation. I'm doing pretty much every upgrade I've thought of along with the rebuild. So if anything is messed up it's on me:-) The building dept is kind of intrigued because they really haven't seen so much Class II in a residence before and frankly haven't worried about it in commercial jobs.
Seeing the deals that popped up recently on NOS discontinued BAS endpoints has really accelerated my adoption of COTS controls. The Wattstopper stuff seems to have the best availability. This is important in case I kiss a tree too hard while skiing and my wife or kids have to take over. Now I just need to find someone that understands BACNET/IP and Legrand DLM to point them to in my will:-)
I know this is a 2-year-old thread. But could you imagine the horror/nightmare if this OP got his wish? Just think about my kitchen ceiling lights. There are 8 lights, and each has four color channels: Red,Green, Blue, warm-white, and cool-white. If they were wired controlled, I would have to run 40 wires back to a control panel and connect them to four terminal screws. That is just the ceiling. I have under-counter lights and others, so call it 50+ wires just for the kitchen lights. Could you image anentire house where every door and indow and lightbulb used a low voltage control wires ruin back to a server closet?
Thank god that Philips Hue uses ZigBee, and I have exactly zero control wires in my kitchen
Then you look at power monitor outlets. I could put a current sensor coil on the outlets and then run hundreds of wires back to a large box of some kind. But the Shelly PM devices work better.
They built houses like this in the 1970s, and you would see a closet that looks like a phone company with literally hundreds of wires terminating in telco-style punchdown blocks all hoked up to something that might have been an alarm system. “I said “may have been because you can’t replve a wired in system and when parts failed no one wanted to run new wire so these old system were unserviceable.
No sane person would want this. 1,000 tiny wires in the walls, and if one breaks, you have to drill and patch 100 holes to run another line.
Well, nobody would accuse me of being sane, but I decided a while ago to ditch all things wireless except for guest WiFi, phones with specific MAC addresses, and my Harmony remote. I have a bunch of Zigbee lights that are now replaced by DMX or Artnet driven lighting. All wall switches and touch panels are wired Ethernet with PoE sending switch events to HA. Why? Reliability, privacy, security, and most of all, because I wanted to. For long term maintainability sake I did choose to run Smurf conduit to all boxes and fixtures. Where I need 120V (e.g. outlets) I run THHN, all else is Cat5e. If someone down the line really wanted to they could remove the Cat5e and replace it with THHN and use old-school 120V switches and lights.
My kitchen ceiling lights sound similar to yours. I have twelve 2'x2' RGBW flat panels, so 48 channels. A single Cat5E cable carrying DMX and a single run of Romex handles them all. Each panel has a DMX LED driver and a 24V MeanWell supply. A large junction box distributes 120V to each panel.
I don't expect the Cat5e to get pulled out anymore however because I can get commercial grade (prior-generation) building automation switches, relays and controllers that use RJ45/Cat5e for about what I'd pay for Zigbee switches and controlled outlets. I'll have a hybrid of the DIY PoE setup I'd already designed and a BACNet based system, but will migrate to fully COTS BACNet/IP over time as stuff becomes available. I did have to spring for a BACNet MS/TP <> BACNet/IP router to connect it to HA, but the BACNet stuff is designed to function without central control if necessary. I just need to find a commercial-class lighting guy to point to wife to in case I croak:-)
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. My current house was wired for the latest and greatest in the 80s and causes more problems than you can fathom!