Hi all,
i’m writing my first post following the advice from @Jojo-A and @Jpsy because maybe this could be usefull for other like me that are approching home assistent for first time.
The question is :
Which possible comunication infrastucture are possible for a domotic house and why ?
Reading on this forum seems that WI-FI is probably the most used and with the most devices available for integration in HA, but what about a wired solutions?
Serching here about wired bus i didn’t found a lot of interesting nor feedback, except for the using of KNX that is probably the most used wired solution, but seems to be very expensive respect a WI-FI solution.
Have someone some succesfully experiences with other cheaper wired bus ?
In another topic support-for-can-bus there are some interesting discussions regarding the use of the very-cheaper very-robust canbus, but isn’t actually native supported so its using needs high skills for hardware and software dev. other than a canbus-to-MQTT bridge to interface with HA.
Another interesting comment is from @Jpsy
ESPHome seems a really game changer for this purpose, it has a lot of different cards and based on my little research on it seems possible a wired connection between different card but keeping the native integration with HA. Someone with experience on ESPHome can give some feedback ? @Jpsy : can you please add some details on the use of POE (or other wired solution) with ESPHome ? i agree with you about cable type and topology and for this i’d like to get the final solution asap, but (not for free and spending some time) i want to keep possible improving on cabling system, i’m the designer and the owner so can try to do it, just in case.
Thanks to any contributor,
Matteo
I think you won’t get a clear answer to that question, because there is just none .
It depends on what you want and what you can do.
From my point of view: when you build a new houseI personally would go for a wired solution based on a system tailored for that purpose.
if you have a house/apartment with a infrastructure which can be changed with moderate effort, I personally would still go for a wired solution, at least for critical parts like light, window shutters or so. In this case I would say that it is still better to go for a Ready-to-use solution like KNX as long as you can afford it. I personally can’t - while on the other hand I very convinced about CAN bus and have good experiances with it since many years in the industry.
So this is exactly my situation: house with “changeable” infrastrcture → setting up my own wired bus system for all “critical” stuff.
If your infrastructure is not easily changeable you might need to go for a wireless solution.
I think this question as as easy to answers as the question which might be the best religion .
I’d not install a system where the single point of failure is myself.
There will come a day when you don’t have the time, ability or just joy to maintain the installation. With a (well planned and executed) standard installation you (or your loved once or whoever maintains the building) can call a professional to get help - may it just be a bad capacitor in a single device.
With KNX , DALI or some popular vendor specific system like Shelly, Busch free@home, Loxone, Hager Easy etc you are not the SPoF. And imho 5k are nothing in the scope of a whole house - especially when you count the time you need to put into such a project.
Thanks Jojo for joining!
Basically the house i’m getting (we are defining some details with bank but it’s done) it will be “flashed” and i will have to build all system from zero. This enable me to implement any solution and having some experience on automation and the desire to learn something new i’d like to reach the best cost\benefits solution possible. WIFI is the parachute solution (affordable and quite simple), KNX is probably the best ready-to-use solution but with important effort and link me to some brands and some devices that i dont’ like so much. My goal is something not so expensive, usefull and not essential for standard operation (the family happiness you were talking about). Plus is something i can play with and expand in future (also with WIFI where I will not have foreseen neither the cables nor the cable passage). After your messagge i start to search about creation a canbus network and i found a lot of perfect HW solution (ESPHome compatible and not) but the SW\FW parts is still a bit obscure. In this moment I still do not see the light at the end of the tunnel, i need to collect more info to declare CanBus something i can reach. Still speaking about ESPHome, it seems somehing that can solve many problem about the comunication infrastructure avoiding some “dirty job” in low level code writing, but too early for me to be sure about. For all of this doubts i’m here looking for some feedback\indications on the way i have to investigate in more details
Unfortunately my experience is with PLCs and modbusTCP, profinet\profibus and similar, too expensive and probably overkilled for this purpose.
HI Matthias,
i totally agree with you and this is the approch i use on my daily job, customer can’t wait, he need the solution yesterday
But here we are speeking about my house so i can relax some constraints and get a bit of (calculated) risk. In any case, all options are still open, my intent is understand the complexity to setup and maintain a “custom” system without a ready-to-use solution.
Even if i will declare my self able to do it, solution will have not to be an essential part of the building, everything will must work without the “smart part”, it will be a simple old electrical plant with local control and without remote control, energy consuming\managing, switch-on\off all, local control for air conditioning and so on.
Fortunately i still have a bit of time to try not to buy a ready-to-use solution, at the end of this search maybe it will be the solution i will chose.
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