Baby/Child Room Prewire - Any special sensors you guys run in kids room

[personalt]

I am setting up the bedroom for a baby due later this year. So far I have wired for the following

1. Cat5/HDMI/Component for computer and TV area
2. Cat5 in ceiling for baby cam/monitor
3. Intercomm
4. Whole house audio speakers
5. UPB light switch

I run ELK and CQC so have a chance to do some automation.

Is there any cool features that you have put in a childs room that I should be thinking about?

 

[AutomatedOutlet]

Looks like you have it pretty well covered. If you want to add extra cat5, that's not a bad idea. Cat5 can be used for a lot of things that you might think of in the future.

 

[personalt]

Looks like you have it pretty well covered. If you want to add extra cat5, that's not a bad idea. Cat5 can be used for a lot of things that you might think of in the future.

I pulled an extra string to attic from where the intercom is so I can get some extra cat5s there if i wanted to expand the keypad. Where the TV/computer is I have 2 plus a string there to attic.

Those with the elk, you guys do any special rules?

 

[Neurorad]

something to control the whole house audio - ethernet for keypad or touchscreen, vs in-wall volume control

will your computer and TV area stay in the same place in this room forever?

when the child is old enough, wireless options for these might be on par with hardwired

will the room stay a nursery forever? might make a good guest BR or kid's BR someday - but I don't think your wiring would change for these; wiring might change if you want to make it an opium den or something else

temperature sensor, thermostat for zoned heating/cooling, sprinkler system (!), multiple ethernet cables for TV/display

if there is good access from attic above or crawl/basement below, you might be able to forego some of the cabling (heresy, I know)

EDIT - and congratulations on the new little one

 

[personalt]

something to control the whole house audio - ethernet for keypad or touchscreen, vs in-wall volume control

will your computer and TV area stay in the same place in this room forever?

when the child is old enough, wireless options for these might be on par with hardwired

will the room stay a nursery forever? might make a good guest BR or kid's BR someday - but I don't think your wiring would change for these; wiring might change if you want to make it an opium den or something else

temperature sensor, thermostat for zoned heating/cooling, sprinkler system (!), multiple ethernet cables for TV/display

if there is good access from attic above or crawl/basement below, you might be able to forego some of the cabling (heresy, I know)

EDIT - and congratulations on the new little one

The TV will stay in the same place forever. The one wall is part of a gambrel roof so the upper section of the wall is sloped. This forces the bed placement which in turn forces the TV placement.

This room will always be this childs room for as long as we live here, but totally agree it needs to grow with the child. The killer part for fishing wire is that this bedroom is over the flat section of my roof so I cant crawl over it. The 'barn' section of the roof paraells this so I can fish stuff across but for each run I need to cut open the sheetrock twice for each run in order to fish it down. Once in the wall and once in the ceiling.

More cat5 keypad locatoin is a good idea. have been using wireless to control cqc which controlls the audio. While while I have the sheetrock open I am gong to put 2 more cat 5s at the intercom location and will just leave the coil up in the attic. I have a 2" conduit that i can use to get to basement but I only want to fill that with actrive wires. I know it is 90 feet from that area to the basement so I can leave two cat5s coiled near the baesment conduit/chase.

Temp sensor is also a good idea. I have underfloor heating and the one zone that services that area hit the two front bedrooms. Since it is just a a two room zone they should be consistant in temperture but you never know. AC cooling is just one zone upstairs so would be a good idea to monitor it more closlely.

Thanks... I find it really strange that this is the main thing pushing getting all my half finished home autiomation projects done but I guess it makes sense as adding new wires makes a mess...

 

[apostolakisl]

I say this a lot, but put in conduit. You have the drywall torn out, you have no idea what the future will bring as far as wires and conduit is cheap. When the kid is in highschool, we may be talking cat12. Maybe your kid will laugh when you say cat anything with that "you're so old" tone in his voice. Who knows? The worst that will happen is that you will have wasted about $20 in conduit and an hour of work.

A little tip I learned about the grey conduit. . . use a propane torch to gently heat it up and it can bend very nicely without having to mess with flex conduit and all kinds of fittings. I still used fittings on the 90's though.

 

[personalt]

I say this a lot, but put in conduit. You have the drywall torn out, you have no idea what the future will bring as far as wires and conduit is cheap. When the kid is in highschool, we may be talking cat12. Maybe your kid will laugh when you say cat anything with that "you're so old" tone in his voice. Who knows? The worst that will happen is that you will have wasted about $20 in conduit and an hour of work.

A little tip I learned about the grey conduit. . . use a propane torch to gently heat it up and it can bend very nicely without having to mess with flex conduit and all kinds of fittings. I still used fittings on the 90's though.

I 100% agree with lots of conduit. ... I built this house 2 years ago, ran thousands of feet of wire and I found myself still missing stuff.. I was opening this wall up because when we ran the whole house audio my helper missed the 2nd speaker wire for this room. If I had conduit from that keypad to tha attic it would have been a peice of cake. The orange low volage boxes are just asking for the conduit as they haev a 3/4" hole built in.

My wife is a teacher (2nd grade) and when she takes out the record player the kids call them 'big cds' so you are totally right in that we dont know what the future will bring.

 

[sic0048]

I know you could monitor sound via either the Camera or the intercom if you wanted to. But you might want to run wire that could be used for a stand alone microphone just in case. That wire should have 3 (or more) strands since you might need an XLR mic which uses three wires. Just a thought - the rest of the list looks pretty complete.

 

[personalt]

I know you could monitor sound via either the Camera or the intercom if you wanted to. But you might want to run wire that could be used for a stand alone microphone just in case. That wire should have 3 (or more) strands since you might need an XLR mic which uses three wires. Just a thought - the rest of the list looks pretty complete.

The mic is a real good idea. The camera has a built in mic but also have a remote jack. Camera is up on the ceiling in a corner. Running a from camera closer to the crib is a real good idea.

 

[pete_c]

It's always good to have a mic.

Many years ago in the 1980's when my son was 1-2 years old I used to use the audio monitors. I was having a new roof put on in the house in FL; my son was sleeping in the afternoon (he would sleep thru anything) and my wife and I were sitting in the Lanai. We heard a crash in the baby's room.

We ran to the baby's room and saw that the ceiling fan had come detached and fallen into the crib. We were lucky that the blades catching on the crib prevented the fan from hitting my son. He slept the whole time never waking up.

One of the things I noticed that facinated my kids (1-4 years old) when they were infants were simple color/music/interactive games on the computer. I set each of them up with touchscreen (CRT's) monitors / games. They enjoyed playing with them.