Home Automation Advice - New Build

[JoshWarren]

Hi, all! I've been lurking on CocoonTech for a couple of months now as we've been planning out our new house. Construction is underway and I've got just about everything figured out, except for the controller(s).

All wiring is being run back to a central point (media room closet), and to most rooms we're running smurf tubes back to the media room closet to make it easy to upgrade/swap out/add to our wiring. We'll be running HDMI over Cat6 to 6 rooms for TV. Speakers in several rooms home-run back to the media room closet for whole-house audio. Alarm system wiring all run back to that same closet.

I've spec'd out an HDMI matrix, etc., from monoprice but the one thing I'm stuck on is the home automation/securitycontroller. I'm going to go with an Elk M1 and ISY-99 and setting up everything on Insteon, but the builder is installing those Schlage Z-wave locks that apparently aren't true Z-Wave - from some of the research I've done, it looks like those locks only interface with Schlage's proprietary software or MiCasaVerde Vera 2 or Homeseer.

Will either of those units (Vera 2 or Homeseer) integrate with the Elk M1 easily? My goal with this is to set it up so that when a user keys in their code to unlock one of the doors, the alarm system is also deactivated. I'd also like to use this system to setback the thermostat (a Z-wave thermostat), turn off lights, etc., when the door is locked and reverse those actions when the door is unlocked.

Is there some other integration with the Elk M1 that might achieve this?

Or, am I better off just getting rid of the Schlage locks and switching to the Kwikset that apparently are true Z-wave?

Thanks for your help!

 

[tmbrown97]

I can't help with your specific question, but I want to comment on your plan to use Cat6 to distribute HDMI... people haven't had very good luck with those converters unless you use the VERY expensive ones (the only one I got to work right was $500).

Depending on your wiring lengths, you may be better off looking at RapidRun cables and getting real HDMI end to end.

 

[JoshWarren]

I can't help with your specific question, but I want to comment on your plan to use Cat6 to distribute HDMI... people haven't had very good luck with those converters unless you use the VERY expensive ones (the only one I got to work right was $500).

Depending on your wiring lengths, you may be better off looking at RapidRun cables and getting real HDMI end to end.

Ahh - thanks for the heads-up on that. A friend of mine has a baluns from monoprice he's had great luck with, so my plan was to go with those, but depending on how long the cable runs are, I may take a look at some other options. I hadn't heard of these RapidRun cables; I'll take a look.

 

[standon]

I have a cat5 run with the monoprice hdmi extenders (the older ones, not sure if the newer ones are the same) and I get a weird flicker every few minutes. I bought a powered HDMI extender by Atlona on ebay for cheap to hopefully correct this problem, haven't hooked it up yet though so I can't report back on it. The monoprice extender I have has a really short run though, just from projector to AV rack, maybe 50ft of cable. I swapped to the spare pair as well with the same results.

 

[Neurorad]

For anything less than 50', a quality HDMI cable should work, without any extender. I've read of 80 feet working, too.