As I am about to planning a new house, I am interested in hearing which considerations / solutions you may have made to improve the house for the future.
At present, I have an setup in my current home, consisting of Home Assistant, HUE, IKEA Trådfri, Sonoff, Xiaomi, ESP, etc.
My immediate thought is the following.
Each lamp outlet is drawn separately to the techroom, which ensures the possibility of changing the light control in the future.
I want to pull Cat6 cables from techroom to all switches, so I can control all Raspberry, Arduino, or IHC via the power switches, and ensure that everything is controlled centrally from techroom.
As I said, I’m interested in hearing your solutions and thoughts on how to get the best and most flexible setup.
They are DIN rail mountable, and most modern switchboards will have DIN rails.
At around $4.00 per outlet (for non pro), it’s gonna cost some outlay. And if they were centralised, like in your switchboard, they’d probably be better if they weren’t wifi.
We’re starting to build a new house this year as well.
At first I wanted to go for the full HA route, but I quickly stepped down from that, mostly for stability reasons.
I will go for a KNX solution (switches, sensors, …), connected with the lights through a DALI interface (most lights will be dimmable LED bulbs and strips).
This way, I can still connect HA to my KNX system and draw in additional services needed (like Sonos, TV, calendars, …), but I still get the full functionality when HA has a hiccup for some reason.
It’s a bit more expensive, but I think in the end it’ll save me a lot of hassle of having to thinking but all the different items and devices.
Been there, done that. I recommend installing steel conduit between each room and your data center. That way, no matter what technology brings, you can easily string it and replace the old.
Not sure about the elsewhere in the world but in the US I don’t think this would work. The sonoffs are limited to 8 or 10 amps per channel. Most US outlets are rated for 15 amps. Plugging in an clothes iron or hair dryer would overload the sonoff.
With a 240V circut the amperage draw is much lower, however, I am not sure what the standard is elsewhere for ratings.
We’re currently still working on the house, in fact, we are starting the electrical works this month.
The main reason for me to go with KNX, is the stability of the platform.
I know a lot of platforms (including HA) have been growing continously and have been getting more stable with every release, but still nothing beats a native solution imo. The girlfriend factor is also a lot bigger with a system that just works The other reason is for the easy of change, I’m not sure how the Shelly 4Pro works, or how the UniPi setup would be, but I’m running all cables for the lights directly to my wiring closet (a bit more hassle to connect in the beginning, but a lot more possibilities later on). This way I’m also not necessarily tied to KNX, I can switch to something else if I want to.
My whole house will be a combination of KNX switches and sensors, DALI drivers to control all the lights, and lots of Cat6A cable,connection all other devices to my setup using HA.
What I’ve learned so far:
I’ve been planning the whole electrical situation for a while now, it’s not easy to do it all by yourself if you don’t have the experience, but starting soon enough should prove to give you enough time to get it all sorted out.
If you never dabbled with KNX, it might not be the best route, as it’s setup can be a bit confusing at first, I’ve heard a lot of good stories about Loxone as well (it’s similar to KNX, but a lot more user friendly to setup). I did have KNX experience from my university studies, and even for me some concepts are far away
I work in IT, and I’m not scared to dabble with some tech and the HA configs, but as said before, for me the priority really was something steady which my girlfriend also can operate easily. (The end goal is that as few as possible actions, like pressing wall switches, would need to be done by the user ofc, but that will grow over time)
Hi Tom. How did you get on with your install? I’m just starting to plan a new build myself and would love to hear what you decided to go for at the end and what challenges you faced.
The other reason is for the easy of change, I’m not sure how the Shelly 4Pro works, or how the UniPi setup would be, but I’m running all cables for the lights directly to my wiring closet (a bit more hassle to connect in the beginning, but a lot more possibilities later on). This way I’m also not necessarily tied to KNX, I can switch to something else if I want to.