I’m just getting into Home Assistant, and the amazing modern world of Home Automation. I’m in the planning phase of building a new home. I want to be proactive in setting up the wiring, hardware, etc. to automate this house.
Growing up, my father put X10 controllers and switches around our house to control basic things like lights and pluggable devices. It worked very well. But the great thing about what he used, is that it lasted forever! He still has most of the same X10 switches in that house, 30 years later.
I know the home automation world is evolving quickly right now. So I would like to future proof whatever I do in my new home. Does anyone have any advice on picking out equipment, that is
FWIW, I have Simply Automated UPB dimmers purchased in 2008 that still work reliably today. That’s approximately 13 years of service. However, they come at a premium (even today) so it’s your decision if paying more is worth it.
I retired all my Smarthome Smartlinc X10 switches due to eventual failure and less than stellar reliability.
UPB uses the powerline for communications, just like X10 and Insteon. It’s not a particularly popular (or even well known) technology with recent home automation hobbyists (who gravitate to zwave, zigbee, Lutron’s offerings, etc) but it’s been around for around 20 years. UPB products are available from PulseWorx, Simply Automated, and Web Mountain.
If I had to start over, I would take a closer look at Lutron’s Caseta switches (although I’m not particularly found of their appearance … but that’s subjective). Pro installers lean towards Lutron’s RadioRa2 (reliability, support, appearance, etc) but that’s even more expensive than UPB.
For future proofing I wouldn’t look into any product at all. Instead I would focus on making the house itself modular. By that I mean that it should be possible to run wires around the house on demand without having to take everything apart. Obviously it’s not a big concern if wireless technology will be used. But for some stuff wires are the way to go. And if you go with one solution now, but want to switch to another one in a few years that requires different cabeling, then replacing the cables should not be an obstacle.
I have multi-generational devices all through my home, over 200 of them. I have some old X10 (which I have had varying degrees of success with in HA but still work fine) and they are 20 years old at least, I have Insteon devices (also power line but also wireless) that have been in service for 15+ years, they seem to have life of between 10-15 years where I might have one or two go south on me and I have Z-Wave and am also adding some Zigbee.
The beauty of HA is that it supports them all! But most home automation stuff is cheap enough that replacing it isn’t a terribly expensive thing to do.
I can say I’m most impressed with the earliest X10 stuff still working and that Insteon is also fairly rock solid.
I’ve been thinking along similar lines as well. I’ve also been imagining having some sort of recess in the wall of each room as well, to put say local relays or something else that might require close proximity.
So with easily replaceable wiring and the ability to change out devices in each room, I thought that might help with obsolescence as well.
That is exciting to hear! That’s the kind of longevity I’m hoping for.
The replacement cost isn’t the biggest issue I’m concerned with. I’m more thinking long term as I get older, I’m not going to want to be tinkering with this stuff on a regular basis. I’m just going to want it to work. Or if I’m not around, my wife is not going to be happy, having no idea how any of that works and how to get it fixed.
That is inevitable, honestly. So long as you have a central brain in your house that controls lights then someone needs to know how to manipulate that brain for any changes whatsoever. I assume by “not around” you mean if you were to drop dead one day, but you will almost certainly leave behind automation specific to your needs (as the nerd of the relationship, like us all) that she’ll have no clue how to tackle.
But, then again, if something did happen to you and a switch went out, she can simply call up an electrician to replace the faulty device with a standard non-automated one and be just fine, with the exception of the horrid experience of pressing a button instead of having the house just know when to switch the lights on .
In my own opinion, home automation is not a “set it and forget it” kind of system, it needs care and feeding pretty regularly. Sure, you’ll find that the vast majority of your stuff just does its thing for years without worry, but there’s always something needing adjusting now and then.
For the most worry free solution, don’t use home automation at all.
I’ve been doing home automation for 20+ years and can tell you that even with all that under my belt that I’ve spent countless hours just in the past few weeks tweaking my home automation for this and that.
And what happens when (not if mind you) the home automation server dies or develops a sniffle? Then you are really SOL.
But, there are always nerds and where there’s nerds there some dude out there that will come to your house and do all this stuff for you .
That makes sense. I’ve been doing IT and programming for my business for years. There is always something going wrong. Or something could be made better (Otherwise known as making even more work for yourself).
But It’s still nice to design a system that mostly just works.
Maybe I’ll even document it properly, so that someone else can easily work on it!
You laugh but it’s an excellent plan! I try to throughly document everything I do that is long lasting (sensors turning on lights, etc) not only for my wife to break that glass in case of an emergency (it’s a shared note on Apple Notes so she always has it) but also when I sell the house if I decide to start over and leave my home automation gadgets behind.
I actually document everything in my home for these same reasons: changing the furnace filter, draining the hot water system, etc.
I very much agree. I just know it’s a tough battle to keep documentation up to date. When you are in the heat of the battle of fixing something, you don’t always document it.
You’d be lucky if most of the hardware on the market these days would last 20 minutes never mind 20 years. That’s coming from someone who still uses some X10 hardware.
I wouldn’t be planning too far into the future re future proofing anything. You could bury rolls of Cat5e cable into the walls today and find yourself having to rip it out in favour of fibre optic and so on
My own personal opinion is wireless is the way to go. I know reliability and security is always an issue but it’s as disposable as it comes and cheap and cheerful. Unlike the old X10 days hardware has such a short built in obsolescence it doesn’t pay to invest heavily in infrastructure these days. Certainly not on a domestic setup.
If I had to put in new cable, it would be in large enough for easy pull through for replacement, and then mostly to ensure wifi access points (yeah, I know, a tautology) have high speed connection, at least a Gbs.
To push my barrow more, build, yes build, your own router using OPNsense (there is the less friendly Pfsense) on an older lower power pc with a multi-port network card, connect a quality access point and HA toys will have an easy, available connection.
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