Home automation for Dummies

 
First my apologies for asking this question. I am sure it
was answered in one of the other threads, But I could not figure out. Basically
we are building a new house and thinking of pre-wiring house for home
automation. What I mean by home automation is Temp control/ Lighting control,
and install touch screen, Surround sound in family room and pre wire for touch
screen at door entrance, kitchen and master bedroom. To accomplish this if I
run a cat 6 cable for each of these location  to basement along with electric wires, is good
enough?


 
We also wanted to put dvd player, cable box, PS and other
gadgets in basement. 


 
We are also thinking of running a cat 6 and RG6 to master
bedroom for TV, Internet


 
Any other suggestions?


 

link broken

BSR - couldn't get your post to work.

Tejvan - Welcome. Start by reading through these recent threads and then we can help from there.

http://cocoontech.com/forums/topic/24111-another-help-a-newbie-post/?hl=%2Bbuilding+%2Bnew
http://cocoontech.com/forums/topic/24207-building-new-home-from-scratch-looking-for-best-av-options-out-there/?hl=%2Bbuilding+%2Bnew#entry192162
http://cocoontech.com/forums/topic/24218-new-home-construction-where-to-start-what-needs-to-be-put-in-during-construction/?hl=%2Bbuilding+%2Bnew#entry192367
http://cocoontech.com/forums/topic/24197-some-questions-about-running-conduit/?view=findpost&p=192258&hl=%2Bbuilding+%2Bnew

Here is the link to the wiring your house 101 guide:
 
http://cocoontech.com/forums/files/file/64-wiring-your-new-house-101/

Thank you for yourr responses. I have reviewed giude 101,102, and 103 and thinking of following iteams
Master bedroom
o Touch screen – Cat-5E, electrical power
o IR – Cat-5E or Station wire
o Video – RG6QS, multiple drops
o Telephone – Cat-5E, multiple drops
o Network – Cat-5E, multiple drops

Kids and guest bedrooms:
o IR – Cat-5E or Station wire
o Video – RG6QS, multiple drops
o Telephone – Cat-5E, multiple drops
o Network – Cat-5E, multiple drops
Kitchen:
o Touch screen – Cat-5E, electrical power
o IR – Cat-5E or Station wire
o Video – RG6QS
o Telephone – Cat-5E
o Network – Cat-5E
o Motion detector – Station wire
Dining Room:
o IR – Cat-5E or Station wire
o Video – RG6QS, multiple drops
o Telephone – Cat-5E, multiple drops
o Network – Cat-5E, multiple drops
Family room:
o Touch screen – Cat-5E, electrical power
o Speakers, whole house sound – 16/4 or 14/4 or 18/2, depending on music system and configuration
o Microphone – Shielded microphone cable
o IR – Cat-5E or Station wire
o Video – RG6QS, multiple drops
o Telephone – Cat-5E, multiple drops
o Network – Cat-5E, multiple drops
Office:
o IR – Cat-5E or Station wire
o Video – RG6QS, multiple drops
o Telephone – Cat-5E, multiple drops
o Network – Cat-5E, multiple drops, at least 2 wires per drop.
 
 The question I have is Do I need a dedicated cat-5E line for each of the iteams like , Phone,Network, and IR are one wire will suffice the need.
 
And If Cat-5E is god enough or Do i need to go to Cat-6?

As mentioned in the "Some questions about running conduit" post, CAT 5/6 is a popular residential wiring and there are many solutions that now convert other connections such as HDMI over CAT cable. So the phone wouldn't use all the wires but most of the other solutions would. Also, you might actually decide to use the "phone" wire for something else down the road so I wouldn't skimp on it.

And if it were me I would select CAT 6 at a minimum and might look at 6A. The wire will be an expense but labor is usually more of an expense, especially if you needed to upgrade later after the walls are closed.

And for something like speaker cable, remember to snake it and lightly staple it back and forth so you will be able to reach it from where you need it and have extra length available.

And I would recommend you get manufactured joists as opposed to solid joists. My house was built with solid joists and it is a pain to run anything. My parents house is built with open joists and it is a cake walk in comparison.

David

You'll also want a category cable to each TV location, for connection to the LAN.
 
You will need separate category cables for phone (if POTS), IR, and LAN.  Many items located in close proximity can share a LAN connection, e.g. AVR, TV, Bluray player, and PC, using a network switch (e.g. Netgear Prosafe gigabit switch).
 
Whether you choose to use cat5E, cat6, or cat6A is open to debate.

Is anyone still installing POTS in rooms any more?  I've not had to use a wired phone for over a decade.  Instead using Uniden 5ghz cordless units with a base station that supports 10 handsets.  Works great.  
 
The whole CAT6 thing seems to be more trouble than it's worth.  A home run of CAT5E is likely to be more that sufficient for just about anything you can throw at it for a residential situation.  Especially given most runs will likely be under 100'.  Whereas CAT6 brings along a lot of VERY specific requirements regarding how the wire is handled and connected.  Do it wrong (which is very easy to do) and you run the risk of ending up with a cable that barely performs better than CAT5E.
 
I'm leaning hard toward not bothering with CAT6 in all but the main TV locations.  Places where high bandwidth demand would be likely to grow.  That's not the various other places I'd put a wired connection.  So the outlets where I'd likely connect something like a touchscreen, appliance, bedrooms and the like would be fine with CAT5E.  For the TV's or office desks I might pull a single CAT6 to each.  But I think a clear bit of conduit would far more useful long-term.  That way I can just run whatever the flavor-du-jour is and not have to deal with CAT6 install hassles now.

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."
-Albert Bartlett

http://www.nngroup.com/articles/nielsens-law-of-internet-bandwidth/

According to that article all our wiring is going to be slow in 10 years, I like the idea about doing conduit and waiting for the standard of the year.

But short of, what, some sort of projected holographic 3D fantasy, would ever REQUIRE that much bandwidth from a home-run wiring plan in a residence?  Bearing in mind these will have to be WIRED devices, not wireless.  That's a whole other adventure.  For some office situations I could certainly see the merits of high-speed interconnects for hybrid desktop/server scenarios (as in, raw buss speeds across the building).  But in a house?
 
I'm not saying it isn't possible, but just what's out there on the horizon begging for bandwidth beyond what CAT5E can provide?  Note, I'm talking about the wire itself, not the protocol running on it (ethernet is a pig).  

By the way, the comment about Cat 6 has been eating at me. What is the difference in wiring Cat 5e vs 6? I've not noticed any difference except 23 gauge wire vs 24 gauge and needing to replace all the extras i had for 5e with Cat 6 equivalents. Also, for the minute cost difference I've read enough about different products that use Ethernet wire (HDMI, USB) with enough stories where Cat 5e didn't work (well) but Cat 6 did. So for me, I'd run Cat 6 in my house vs the small cost savings of Cat 5e, especially since we're talking a house where the wiring could be there for 10, 20 or more years.

Regarding residential bandwidth, it will largely be driven by our portable devices and streaming video so I don't see a large spike in bandwidth requirements in the near future. New standards keep coming out for more efficient wireless and video compression technologies since residential bandwidth (to the house) hasn't been growing much for the majority of US citizens (not knowledgable about world situation in this regard so I will focus on US).

David

With CAT5E it's almost entirely the wire that handles the signal.  But with CAT6 the insulation is also part of the equation.  With CAT5 you could pretty much install it any which way and the overall performance wouldn't be affected.  With CAT6 you have to take greater care to avoid crushing the insulating jackets around the wires.  Seriously, I kid you not.  This goes right up to how the wires are untwisted and terminated.  Otherwise you lose whatever bandwidth gains you might have gotten from the added expense.
 
So I'm back to what's out there that's going to require more than a gigabit of bandwidth down a single link?  Otherwise for the various places that aren't ever likely to be bandwidth pigs I'm just going to run CAT5E.  It's cheaper (not by much), thinner, easier to install and the connectors are cheaper too.  Size of the wires starts to matter when you've got upwards of 50 of them coming together in a bundle that needs to be snaked along through conduits, joists and bulkheads.

Thanks every body for your inputs. we are decided to go with cat5E. And we are going with atleast on cat5E to each room.