Questions from a HA Newbie

[Adrenaline]

Hey guys,

Brand new poster here! I've always thought HA was cool, and years ago my dad got me some X10 to play with and it was neat, but never really went much past that.

Fast forward to today, my wife and I are looking to build a house and, at a minimum, I want to future-proof it for HA. Before I get into any actual questions, I would like to say that I am doing my absolute best to research this stuff myself in detail, but at some point it becomes information overload and I'm hoping that a few pushes in the right direction will help me fine tune my searching and reading, but I don't intend to waste everyone's time by asking questions that can easily be searched.

So...the builder is willing to let me run any cable that I need before the walls go up, and a few years ago I would have thought that was a necessity, but with the advent of wireless I'm not even sure if it's still useful. I have found the Wiring Your New House 101 wiki article here on cocoontech, but I guess my first question is...is it still applicable today in the world of Z-Wave, etc...? I don't mind running wires all over the place, and I fully intend to run conduit to major areas from a central closet, but I'd love to know what becomes overkill as far as pre-wiring (beyond the obvious of speaker cable and hdmi).

As far as what I want in my HA system...initially we'd love to have Multi-Zone Whole Home Audio and to have every light/fan in the house available for control. In the future I could see A/V sharing to multiple endpoints, motorized shades, motion detection, irrigation system, appliances, garage door, water sensors, microphones and anything else that I can possibly think of, so I want to pre-wire anything that's necessary. I'd also love to have iPads or tablets of some kind mounted around the house to act as control points, information displays, video camera outputs, intercoms, etc...

A little bit about me to help inform decisions. I am a Computer Programmer. I'm decently capable with hardware, but it's not my specialty. I am very strong in .Net and a DIY implementation is most likely what I want vs. a professional installation so I am leaning towards Elve or CQC as a software controller. I am capable enough with electrical stuff to replace lights, fans, switches, but I'm not an electrical engineer by any stretch. Any thoughts about what direction I should head with the above skill set?

I'm willing to work with a hardware controller, but from what I can tell the best ones are expensive and are really security pads (like HAI), and in the end - being a .Net developer - I think i'd be happiest with something I can fiddle with. We definitely want security, but I think that I would like the actual security system to be completely separate from the HA system. Is that antiquated thinking? Is it not a security risk to have them integrated? Am I wrong in thinking a software controller is for me?

I'm having the hardest time deciding on which hardware to go with. I feel like from a cost/performance standpoint Insteon or Z-Wave is probably the direction i'm leaning. I like the fact that Insteon is through power and rf instead of just rf, but i've read that Z-Wave seems to be the new accepted standard. What do you guys think? Cost is a factor for all of the above, but if we pre-plan it the cost is negotiable depending on what we get for the expenditure, so I'd love to hear opinions from the low up to the mid-high ends. We can't drop 50k, but 5-10k is doable.

If you guys could help by pointing me in the best direction i'll keep going down my research path and will post more targeted questions in the future.

Thanks and I look forward to getting involved in this community!
Michael

 

[Craer]

Welcome to the forums.

I will start by saying i am by no means an expert but am still learning.

I was in the same boat as you with building a new house and having the option to run cabling. The only cabling i ran was cat5 and audio cables. This was a big plus and is still saving me time today. I always prefer to use a direct connection as opposed to wireless whenever i can.

With that said, i'm still in the beginning phases of my home automation system. After a lot of research, i chose z-wave. I ordered up a couple dimmers/switches from GE and they have worked great. I set up Homeseer and was able to control the lights without problem. I tried to run Elve, i liked that interface way better and it actually seemed easier to use, however it was unable to discover my nodes through the aeon labs zstick controller. I have not tried cqc yet but i will prior to doing any purchases of software, but so far homeseer seems to meet my initial requirements.

I would recommend trying out all 3 systems however and decide for yourself. All 3 have a good trial period, which makes it extremely useful in making a decision

 

[frijoli]

Hey guys,
.............Before I get into any actual questions, I would like to say that I am doing my absolute best to research this stuff myself in detail, but at some point it becomes information overload and I'm hoping that a few pushes in the right direction will help me fine tune my searching and reading,....................

So...the builder is willing to let me run any cable that I need before the walls go up, and a few years ago I would have thought that was a necessity, but with the advent of wireless I'm not even sure if it's still useful. I have found the Wiring Your New House 101 wiki article here on cocoontech, but I guess my first question is..
Thanks and I look forward to getting involved in this community!
Michael

ABSOLUTELY, hard wire EVERYTHING that you can now and consider wireless only for what you missed. Seriously!
Read the wiring 101 over and over, then read this blog: http://www.quadomated.com/

Then run as much cable as you can afford.

Clay

 

[ano]

I use a combination of hard-wired and wireless. I have many wireless sensor and they are just as reliable as the wired ones, and batteries have been running 7 years with no low batteries yet. Today the trend is everything IP, so if you are wiring, you can't go wrong with Eithernet but also some heavier power wires are good.

One word of warning. That is great you builder lets you run wires, but it is the home inspector that approves them, and he/she might not be so open. Make sure all wires are approved for in-wall use and make sure all low-voltage wiring codes are followed to the letter.

 

[apostolakisl]

I highly recommend you run lots of conduit and not so much wire.

Reasons:
1) Conduit is cheap (about 20 cents/foot.)
2) Conduit allows for remove/replace or additional wires in the future.
3) Conduit allows you to forgo running lots of expensive "just in case" wires since you always can add that wire in the future.

Conduit protects you from future technology changes.
Conduit allows you to change your mind
Conduit allows you to get away with more mistakes.

Most important areas to run conduit are obviously the places you can't access in the future. Exterior wall are a big one. Rooms with no attic above or crawl space/unfinished basement below.

 

[Adrenaline]

Thanks for the input guys! I've taken your advice to heart and looked at the quadomated blog. I had seen it before but not looked at it in detail. Some of it went over my head, but I did learn a lot. I also just re-read through the Wiring 101-103 posts. It seems like a combination of running CAT5e, speaker wire, RG6QS, and Station wire along with conduit to important areas would get me most of what I need as far as future proofing.

A couple of questions that have popped up from this thread and my reading today...

• If I use Z-Wave for light switches, I don't need any kind of CAT5e cable for those, right? It's all wireless, so just make sure the gang box is non-metallic?
• I plan to use an iPAD or Android tablet of some sort for touchscreen access to the whole system, so is the need for CAT5e necessary for touchscreen areas? What about Whole Home Audio keypads? If I do that through the tablet there's no need for the wall wart or the cable run, right? I might would do a hardwired security panel in case the tablet is failing, but beyond that I feel like the tablet can handle a ton of stuff with no additional wiring necessary.
• How does RG6QS compare with HDMI? A/V runs almost exclusively off HDMI nowadays, do I need to run multiple HDMI drops to every room that will potentially have a TV or is RG6QS still the way to go?
• Should I go ahead and do CAT6 instead of CAT5e for the negligible cost (~$25 per 1000ft)?
• How would you plan conduit to an exterior wall, guess at location that you might need things?
• After reading quadomated, should I consider a HAI Omnipro II as the central piece and just extend it with something like CQC or Elve? Or if I know I need the extended features is there a need for the additional cost of the hardware controller?
• I plan on letting an electrician run all power, including LV. Is that being overly cautious?
• If I am allowed to wire between inspection and drywall (and i'm not doing power at all), is it ok to not involve an inspector?

I'm sure i'll have tons more, but really appreciate the feedback you guys are giving. Thanks!

 

[foxtail22]

I have been through 4 new house builds and faced your questions with each one. My advice would include the following:

1. Hardwire as much as possible. Then augment with wireless.
2. Go with CAT6 over 5e. The extra money will be well worth it as time goes on. When I built my present house 7 years ago, Cat 5e was the choice but today, it has limitation for Gigabit LANs. I also found that Cat5e was the cheapest wire and thus I used it to wire every window and door for security, along with my telephone, and LAN wiring runs. I used 6000 ft of Cat5e. It was cheaper then the 2 wire security wiring and gave me 8 conductors.
3. Look for a system that can handle security, fire, lighting, audio, video, and other automation controls. I ended up going with an ELK M1G and an ISY to tie in my Insteon network. It is key to find a company that has alliances with other companies to tie things together. No one company does it all, or if they do, they do it poorly. If you have preferred products for some of your items like audio, video, etc, look for companies that have alliances with them to help tie it all together.
3. Plan for everything you want, then add spares to key points in the house.
4. If you have a basement and 2nd story, run a 2" PVC pipe from the basement to the attic in a straight line run to later pull cables from the basement to the attic area where they can then be dropped down the inside wall areas in the top floor rooms.
5. Lighting controls are best done with one of the home automation technologies such as Insteon.
6. If you plan to mount your TVs on the wall, run cable jacks and internet jacks to those wall locations. In your main viewing room, consider installing a PVC pipe in the wall to run from the TV to your multimedia center. This lets you upgrade cables as the technologies change so you are not stuck with HDMI 2 when HDMI 5 is the latest and greatest thing.
7. In the end, there are no right answers as to exactly what is right for you to do. Only you can best decide that. Start with how you live and what is important to you, then expand and list the things that might be nice to do to make living easier. Prioritize both lists, then decide where you want to draw the line. There is no limit to what can be done, but is it right for you. I have learned that over wiring can scare off potential buyers when you go to sell so if resale value is a consideration, try to plan to be just ahead of the curve but not too far. I planned for the things that makes life easier such as motion controlled lighting, security, safety. I ended up doing things I never through of when I built the house such as motion controlled far end circulators to provide instant hot water in bath and kitchen, lighting control of a lighthouse, closing garage doors when they are left open, monitoring status of my whole house generator, IP cameras to check on our cats when we are away, etc. The point is that no matter how well you plan, you will come up with things after the fact that you want to do to make your life easier. Including spares and PVC piping helps accomodate for the additions after the fact.
8. If you have separated buildings such as storage sheds, boat houses, etc. Have the builder run underground conduits from the house out to them. This will let you include them in you security plan later and close overhead doors if they are left open. Few devices support the weather extremes so devices with electronics are not good to locate in the out buildings so hardwire with sensor switches on doors and windows is a smart choice for these.