What would you change about your flat?

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Hi all,
I’m new here, I recently bought a flat (unfinished, not even internal walls are built) and I’ll be using home-assistant for some automation. I was wondering if I should be aware of anything during construction.

Basically, what would you change about your flat if it wasn’t too much pain in the ass to do it? Maybe it’s some home-assistant compatible light switch or RGB controller integrated into the wall? Or maybe it’s some recuperator integration? Or maybe when buying TV one should look for some specific software feature?

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Neutrals at EVERY switch location, which is code in the US, now.

Run Cat-5e/6 (doubtful you need 7 or 8) everywhere you have anything that going to be stationary. Run several for TV locations. I run a minimum of 4, but you could go up to 6 or even 8 depending on your options and I just ran some when I relocated my bedroom TV and everything is behind the TV…no wires, and with a NVDIA Shield, I get 4K easily (for some insane reason, TVs still ship with only 10/100MB cards…who does that?).

Run several to where you use your computer(s). I have 10 in my office (no kidding). 4 computers and a lot of my home automation gear and a WiFi access point.

Run Cat-5e/6 to every location you plan on having an access point, and I would run two because some access points allow you to team together two 1GB links to give you WiFi 6e or 7 speeds and that keeps you from having to spend money on 2.5GB/5GB port switches, which are way more expensive. WiFi with an Ethernet backbone is far better than running mesh, plus with a Power over Ethernet (PoE) switch, you can power the access points off of your switch(es) and if you have a UPS on your switch(es), your WiFi will not go down.

If you have a PoE switch, you can do other neat things like power other devices with it rather than needing to plug things into mains. For instance, I have a Raspberry Pi 4B with a PoE hat on it and my switch powers up my Home Assistant box. I also have two separate Pi-Hole Raspberry PIs and my switch powers those, too. It is far cleaner with just one network cord and no others. I have PoE splitters for other things to run them off of PoE, such as my Tempest weather station and Hue hub. The switch has dual power supplies and it is fed by two different UPSes for redundancy, and that also increases the runtime when power is off. I get 45-minutes to an hour.

Speaking of network equipment, I would run that on its own breaker so if someone plugs something in that pops a breaker, you don’t have to worry about your network going down.

Basically, my advice is while your walls are open, jam every wire you think you are ever going to need in there before they get finished.

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I do not know what country you are in so electrical requirements may be different. But I would make sure the wall boxes where light switches go are the deep models and not shallower ones. I would also make sure the electrician draws all wires to there. Both live and neutral should be there for permanently powered smart switches.

I also make sure I have ethernet where possible. Not so much home automation, but only use wireless connections if you need them. You’ll likely have a lot of wireless IOT devices before you know it.

But I see @kahilzinger beat me to both.

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I also strongly recommend home-running your network pulls to a single communication box / closet to make working with all of it easier in the future. This includes any coax that you may have. Coax can also be used for ethernet via MoCA adapters, but you’re working on a hub (not switch) technology that caps out a 2.5 Gb then

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What do you guys mean by Neutrals? as in grounding?

I’ll run cat 6a S/FTP, full copper. I was thinking about 2-3 wires to my home office but I’ll reconsider it

Good points on POE, never really used. Maybe it’s a good time to change that

Excellent point on the breaker, never would have thought about that

What smart switches would you guys recommend?

@tykeal I am happy to know that I am not old enough to have seen a hub :smiley: afaik, you cant even buy them anymore, tho what surprises me is that it can reach 2.5G. Also not planning on running any Coax

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3 wires, live, neutral, ground

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Consider having an IT cabinet, so there is good noise cancellation without losing ventilation and power plugs.
The layout of wires have already been discussed and the did mention using APs, which means not a combined router/AP. The split of the two functions means you can upgrade them separately and they can be placed where it makes sense for their specific function.

If you are pulling cables in tubes, so they can be changed easily later, then go for what you like now.
If you are making it harder to change them later, then go as high as possible and at least category 6, preferable category 7.

When mounting wall drop boxes for the network wires, then think about what the area is used for.
If it is in an area with little human traffic, like inside a cabinet, then mount them as you like, but if they are in the open, like where table legs, office chairs, human movement, vacuum cleaners and the like can hit them, then mount them, so the connectors are flush with the wall.

Also make sure that there are extra wire behind the wall drop boxes, so you have something to work with later if the box gets destroyed and you might risk loss some length on the wire from the destruction.

If you can afford it, then run shielded wires for network. This goes especially for cables pulls that gets close to the standards max. length.

For electrical wiring make sure the boxes behind wall switches are deep enough, so you can mount shellys or whatever the future might provide. The deeper the better.

If you want fire alarms, then consider the option for a link wire for these and maybe also a mains wire.
Mains wired fire alarms with battery backups are just nicer, especially if you want to monitor them wirelessly.

Consider already now places for mounting presence devices, so you can install mains power and maybe also network wires for them. Main power and network connectors are also easier to hide when it is thought out from the beginning, like making a hidden compartment in a wall for this.

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Neutrals may or may not be in your country. In the US, we have what they call single-phase, which is actually two phases. One is 120-VAC, the other phase is 120-VAC and when you combine them, you get 240-VAC. However, you also get a neutral and that is where we get our 120-VAC at each outlet. It is a little different from ground.

Grounding does happen in the US but it is to avoid electrical shock should a live wire hit the case. In the US, neutral and ground are bonded together at the point where the electric comes into its first box at the location. It can be just a simple disconnect or it can be your first circuit panel.

I assume you are in the UK or Europe. Line is usually brown out there (black in the US). Line 2 in the UK or Europe is usually black (red in the US) and the third one is grey (blue in the US). Neutral in the UK or Europe is typically blue (white in the US). Green seems to be ground, universally, though I have seen them with yellow stripes outside the US. This is a frame of reference or a guide, not an absolute. ALWAYS TEST. Contact an electrician if you are not familiar with this.

The reason it is suggested to have a neutral at every switch location is that a lot of smart switches require it to run the radio portion of the switch as it always will be pulling a small amount of power to run that. Dumb switches will only have two terminals plus ground and if you are retrofitting your home where these dumb switches are used, that neutral will usually be missing and then you have to run it. I had to do that in one switch location…not fun.

Also I second the deep boxes tip from @Edwin_D Really frustrating to try to jam a deep switch and all that wiring into a shallow box.

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Ground is required to green/yellow striped in the EU for new installations.

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Okay, now i get what you guys mean about wires. I live in Lithuania, its already a standard to route live and neutral wires through the power switch

Yep, already running OPNSense :))