Referring back to the OP here and what I do not understand.
I'd like to automate my new house that we are building right now... The only problem is that I'm new to all this and I don't know a single thing about electricity and other stuff like that.
My guess is that you are in the planning stages and the next paragraph of LED lighting is indicatory of what you want in your new home or did you purchase a home with just LED lighting in place?
The whole house has wired LEDs. I'd like to be able to control them ( on/off, dimmer, scenes, etc...) over smartphones, tablets, in-wall touch screens and avoid ( if possible) the wall switches ( we don't want to have 8 side by side switches...). After long hours of reading, I think I know we have to pass wires from all the leds to a (lots) module in a control panel ( structured media enclosure leviton style...) but I don't know what kind of module, how many, etc... We would also like to be able to use motion detector to close/open lights in different areas of the house.
Typically today you can replace every 120VAC wired light bulb with an LED lamp that runs on 120VAC. It is a cost saving measure and there is nothing special about using LED 120VAC lights with legacy switches. (not automated switches).
A new home typically will be utilizing old standards of 120VAC wiring. I would do some homework relating to standard 120VAC home wiring. For a moment take the LED lighting stuff out of the picture.
There are many ways today to automate lighting connected to standard home wiring.
LED lighting is replacing incandescent lighting. It is different and still works fine using 120VAC.
Automation of 120VAC involves a bit more electrical stuff. IE: deeper electrical boxes, neutral wires at each box, et al.
Here still a bit in to mostly incandescent lighting. I have now migrated a few things over to 120VAC LED lighting. I also have been using 12VDC LED lighting.
The above noted and I believe it's been mentioned a few times since the OP. With new contruction wire standard electric and then up the standard a bit. Over the years here have increased the number of breakers in my panel by splitting out the electric in sections and rooms in the house. IE: I redid my family room and today it has a breaker for just the lighting and a couple of breakers for the electrical outlets. I did put all of the multimedia stuff on one breaker and it is separate from the rest of the outlets in the family room. I did similar in the master bathroom for the "tub", lighting et al. Make the 120VAC wiring automation friendly. Really there isn't much involved in this cost wise.
The original automated switch was not made for LED lighting rather incandescent lighting. #1, #2 and #3 below now are just beginning to change such that they work with LED 120VAC lighting. Working means that they DIM and go on and off just like incandescent lighting.
Many folks illuminating kitchen counters these days use strips of low voltage LED lighting. Typically these are connected to a 120VAC transformer which connects to a wall switch or are turned on right at the transformer. You can now also dim these but it involves a bit more electrical work. Tinkering a bit here I am using both 120VAC LED lighting under counters and 12VDC under counters (due to WAF using the garage kitchen cabinets for testing this stuff).
The automated switch comes in various flavors today. The older automated switch while being connected to 120VAC was controlled by a low voltage wire which went to a controller. (it still is the sure bet of automating a wall switch today). If you are going to utilize 120VAC connected LED lighting then make sure that the automated switch you utilize can work with 120VAC LED lighting. ON, OFF, DIM LED lighting is what you are looking at.
1 - pure powerline is X10 and UPB
2 - powerline hybrid is powerline and wireless bridging
3 - wireless is now using Z-Wave, Insteon, Zigbee and 802.XX.
When you decide which methodology you want to utilize also look at the cost of the switch and how many switches you will need and how long it will last and get comfortable with the technology of use and configuration.
Here migrated my X10 stuff over to XTB and do not have issues with it today. I do only utilize it for my Christmas decorations setting the house codes to be identical.
Most of my UPB today is in light switch modules in metal boxes and electric is using metal conduit. I do also have a few UPB lighting modules around. I have no issues with any of it today.
I do also utilize Z-Wave and Zigbee for certain things and it works fine for me.
I was an early adopter of Insteon (the salad days) as I originally transitioned all of my old X10 (from the 70's) over to it a few years back.
That said I did like that my Insteon switches were controlled by X10 controllers and Insteon controllers. For me it was the right path to go.
I like UPB much more than Insteon today.
RadioRA is very popular these days and on this forum.
Personally here I prefer to utilize the wire (whatever it is) for my automation transport stuff. That is a personal choice.
