Building a house! Need ideas and help for smart solutions

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Hey all of you hubitatters😊

Me and the wife are getting ready to build a house, and with that i am planning on makeing mye house super smart.
I am looking for some smart solutions i maybe havent thought about, if you or somebody you know have allready build a house, i would love to hear about your project. And what you did👍

ELECTRICAL / LIGHT SWITCHES
I have read abot about the Fibaro dimmer 2 and thinks this could be a good choice for me. Have anyone tried it out? How does it work for you? They costs abit, especially when i am gonna need a few of them.

WINDOWS / CURTAINS ect.
Ikea has some products i've been watching
I think its called Fyrtur.
Has anyone any experience with theese?

DOOR / LOCK
Can anyone recomend a brand or modell for me here?

HEATING
Been looking for a good alternativ for an electric radiator(Norway is a cold country), that has open api, but non of the norwegian brands has this, so they only work with theyr own app. And i cant use the dashboard to controll the temprature then.
Any suggestion here?

DASHBOARD
I have also looked into getting an lcd screen to put my dashbord into, and mount it into the wall. But i cant find any decent products here, maybe the rasberry PI with an lcd screen. But thats it.
If there is no good alternativ i just have to find an old ipad or somehting and not put it into the wall.

Is there some other products you guys feel i have forgotten, or something you really recomend for a new house, i would love to hear from you.

Ps, I live in Norway, so to make it harder for you.
all the suggestion you have for me, need to be in regulation to EU building laws and all that jazz, this is for example mostley electrical stuff in the walls.

Tech i have atm is:
The hubitat
Phillips Hue hub (to use with Ikea stuff)
Alot of smart plugs,motionsensors and door sensors

Thanks for any help at all!!:blush:

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I'm unsure of the electrical regulations in Norway, in the UK we do not normally have a neutral wire where the light switch is. When your house is wired it may be worth doing this (if not already) to ensure there are plenty of choices with smart light switches.

If I had the chance to build a house, I would be looking to support as much as possible with the infrastructure rather than support for a specific product, in 8 years time you may struggle to replace smart stuff if it's made for certain size or connection.

I have a smart tablet in my wall, but I made the hole bigger than it needs to be in case the tablet dies and I can't find that same size. https://community.hubitat.com/t/in-wall-mounted-tablet/25116

I also think network cable (cat6) is still relevant to every room.

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What a great opportunity! And exciting!

As Northan mentioned, the neutral wires - assuming it works within your regulatory framework.

Also as he mentioned, LAN cable to anywhere or everywhere you think you might ever put a device. I think I have used almost ever piece of LAN cable I put in when I renovated my house. Don't forget LAN cable for security cameras (if you so desire).

If I had it to do again, I would pull wires to exterior door and window for alarm sensors. I know wired is old school but when it comes to security, I like old school.

Make sure you run wire to where your doorbell(s) will be. Our house never had a doorbell (it had a knocker) and we forgot to ask for one and didn't notice until the brick and mahogany was all done. We still don't have one.

Don't forget speaker wire - if you are going to put in a sound system.

Also, don't forget video (HMDI?) cables for televisions (monitors) if you want to hide the boxes that drive them.

To his point of infrastructure, if it's feasible you may want to look at installing conduit. That way as technology changes you can pull new cable.

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Have a look at the Shelly Dimmer, it's like the Fibaro 2 Dimmer but a third of the price. I'll be getting some when the non neutral version is out.

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@Eric.C.Miller with all the cables you have suggested there may not be a need for insulation. It could amount to huge savings in northern climes. :wink:

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Cable is cheap. Tearing open walls is not. That's my theory.

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I do agree. I have added a lot of electrical and other cabling to my house. I have managed to do so with few holes but it is a pain to be sure. Do it before the drywall is up and as you suggest add as much as you can imagine.

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In order to keep from having to go through a lot of batteries, you might want to consider running 2 wire pairs from a central location to the top and bottom of all the windows, top of each door, where you want a siren, where you want water sensors, and possibly where you want PIR sensors (these require 4 wire bundles) then you could very cheaper wired door/window sensors, cheap water sensors 5 Pcs. Water Leak/Flood Alarm Sensor w/Leads | eBay, $10 wired siren, and cheaper motion sensors too. You could then use a Konnected.io board(s) (you may need more than one depending on if you consolidate zones like all the windows in each room top and bottom as one zone) to bring all of those wired devices to your Hubitat. You may not save money right away with the Konnected board(s) and wired sensors but you won't have to constantly be changing batteries in a year or two when all of your zigbee or z-wave stuff is burning through their first batteries.

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Great idea!

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Why is everybody so excited about all these wires? I just started with this HA shizzle and 1 of the biggest advantages I find the LACK of needing wiring everything. We have beautiful WiFi, Zigbee and Z-wave meshes to let everything communicate with each other and now you are all advising this Viking to throw this possible planning of simple (and much cheaper) layout without control cabling. Just make wires to where you need power. That's in the ceiling, to power the light. Not the wall, wall's don't need power. Stick a wireless switch on the wall. Made a mistake? Remove it and give it another place. Just my 2 cts...

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Only the network cabling is something I would consider.

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I don't know about where he lives but I live in a U.S. suburban neighborhood. Right now I am seeing 25 wireless access points within range of my house. I have never done a Z-Wave or Zigbee site survey but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a few of those networks as well. Any one of my neighbors can fire up some new wireless devices and cause interference that I would have to track down and resolve. Also I hate having to change batteries.

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Exactly as @Eric.C.Miller says. I live at end of a cul-de-sac with half acre lots (plenty of space between lots) and I can still detect close to 20 Wi-Fi networks. 2.4 wireless is way too crowded between zigbee, microwaves, Wi-Fi, etc so I personally ran 1000s of feet of Cat5 years ago and hard wire whenever possible. Wireless speakers are terrible as example. I hard wire whenever possible.

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We are zoned R4 "4 dwelling units per acre" although our lot is closer to 1/3. I was amazed how many APs were within receiving range. Many of them with quite a good signal. Most with security, I am happy to report.

(When we did the renovation) My electrician gave me one day to pull all the signal wire I wanted - Cat5 for LAN and Telephone, some coax (Verizon still likes to use coax for set top boxes), HDMI+Cat5+Coax for the TV locations. I pulled a couple of boxes of it. Much of it was unterminated for a couple of years . . . no longer. He rewired all the switch boxes he touched with neutrals. There were 2 or 3 boxes where walls had not been opened and the old wiring was grandfathered. In hindsight I should have had him rip those out - the cost would have been negligible.

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When the hub is down, light switches still work. Just my $.02 (not adjusted for current exchange rates.)

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FWIW, I tend towards wiring what I can.

I have remodeled my house extensively over the last couple of years, and I'd certainly do a few things differently.

  1. More thought given to pot lighting control and placement.

  2. More CAT-6, and better thought given to structured wiring cabinets.

  3. Possibly some "contact" wiring for sensors (as @Eric.C.Miller suggested).

  4. PoE wiring to the soffits, and a few other places (like my front Portico) so I could connect Ubiquiti Cameras. Plus maybe some PoE pulled to a few other places outdoors (mailbox, shed, etc) for outdoor sensors, etc.

  5. Maybe HDMI over cat-6 drops from my TV locations to my structured wiring cabinets or a distribution panel...just in case I actually ever want to pay for cable one day.

  6. Alternative options for under cabinet lighting. I have two solutions, neither of which is ideal.

But mostly, I think, I'd think about how I use my house and how I could do things smarter, and how I could wire it better to support my Smart Home habit.

Wireless is "convenient", but for lots of things wired is more secure, and generally very reliable.

YMMV though.

S

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I got one of the Leviton structured wiring panels. It's modular. It has a couple of punch down blocks to terminate Cat 5 with RJ45 jacks so they can be easily patched to a nearby ethernet switch. Another set of punch down blocks terminates the phone lines. In the same room (a utility/storage room) are the Optical Networking Terminal, FIOS Router (hate that), a Set Top Box, and a BluRay player - those are all internet connected and connected to the TV/Monitor in the next room via HDMI.

Audio terminates in another closet in my office (one floor up). From there, a windows 10 machine serves as a file server for the Sonos system. Also a Sonos Connect connected to a Denon receiver - this drives a pair of speakers in my office and a pair on my back patio. There is also a Connect:Amp that drives two more speakers in my carport. Luckily I have attic space above so a lot of my cable goes up from this closet to the attic. That takes care of the two sets of outdoor speakers as well as ethernet with poe power to 5 security cameras and one of two Unifi access points.

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I came to say this same thing. Better yet, add hard-wired contact sensors (the kind that seamlessly go into doors and windows) to everything you can, and use a central controller to manage these. Not having to worry about batteries, etc., is one big point of failure removed, and an extra layer of security, too.

Heck. Do closets, too! Wire everything you can. It’s a lot easier to not use it and have it, than not have it and need it.

Edit: if you want smart vents, consider running wire to those, too. Or add zone control to your HVAC.

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Many great suggestions. Thank you so much.
I've been working alot lately so have not had the time to reply until now.

Are going to wired all the windows then, and see about the rest, still in drawing phase, so alot remains, so much planning.

Thanks again, all of you!

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You'll forgive me. It's a pet peeve. My wife and I are getting ready to build a house
Because if you take your wife out of the sentence, me is not getting ready to build a house. I am getting ready to build a house. :wink:

Ok, crisis averted :laughing:

I agree completely with the sentiments here regarding the infrastrucutre. Divices will come and go, but you will be kicking yourself if you didn't build in a robust CAT 6 or greater ethernet network in as many locations as you can afford. Add electrical outlets EVERYWHERE. As many as you can afford.

My son and I like to watch "Worlds Most Extreme Homes". In many of the episodes, these very wealthy home owners are asked what would you change, and quite often the answer is "more outlets". Of course, some of them are so extreme, like a New Zealand home cut out of rock, that adding outlets later without surface mounting the mains (a move that would be completely unacceptable in homes of that calibre) would be a major undertaking.

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