Seeking advice for devices in a new home build

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Hello Hubitat friends, I've got a big ask for advice here.

This is sort of a "what would you do if you were starting from scratch?" We're (wife, 1-yr old son, myself) building a new house and I want to be thinking ahead to make sure we're incorporating the things we need to make our new home HE ready including PoE stuff etc.

After lurking here a while, I've got a few ideas but would like everybody's feedback on specific brands/items to use. Also if there's a smart item not listed that we should incorporate, I'd love that feedback:

-Smart Switches for dimmable lights and fans - Lutron Caseta
-Security Cameras & doorbell - was thinking Reolink but haven't seen a driver here to use yet. Open to suggestions, but I liked Reolink for their several PoE options and NVR's without a subscription needed.
-Locks - Yale given the native driver here.
-Blinds - Graywinds
-Thermostat - We're having geothermal installed and have heard ecobee is the way to go here.
-Motion sensors - My wife thinks the Third Reality ones we currently have are a bit too slow for her. Open to people's advice here.
-Garage opener - Heard that MyQ recently bailed on their third party support? Open to suggestions here again. Are the tilt sensors too complicated for a beginner like me?
-Dog door - SureFlap dog door that reads chip. Looks like there's a community driver too on HPM
-Car charger - we have two electric cars. Wallbox looks like it has the best community support here?

For the record, it's not an elaborate house so budget is middle-of-the-road. I'm a beginner level user with almost zero coding abilities. I've been practicing at our current apartment with some basic rules with motion sensors, smart plugs, and smart lights/strips. HE is awesome so far. Definitely have a preference for smart items that have native support or well established custom drivers. I've only used custom drivers off of the Package Manager which is great for a beginner like me, but I would be willing to try other custom drivers too even though if I'm being honest, Github intimidates me.

Really appreciate any advice folks have!

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Excellent choice! My Lutron Caseta Switches, Dimmers, Fan Controllers, and Pico Remotes are probably my most stable and reliable part of my home automation system. Just remember that you will need the Lutron Caseta Smart Hub Pro ( L-BDGPRO2) in order for it to work with Hubitat.

I used to use a Ring Doorbell and a few Ring Cameras. I have since switched my entire home network over to a Ubiquiti UniFi Dream Machine SE based solution, along with UniFi Protect cameras. I am very pleased with the stability and performance of this solution for my needs.

I have two Ecobee thermostats here. They have been working well for years, and provide a much more comfortable home versus the Nest thermostats that they replaced.

As far as building a new house... I would make sure to run multiple Cat 6 cables to every room of the house, and bring them all back to a central 'network closet' location. You may want to even include a few ceiling locations to be able to ceiling-mount wireless access points.

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@ogiewon Thank you very much this is super helpful. Didn't know that about the Lutron Hub, seems like it's worth it though. Will check out Ubiquiti this week.

Having a network closet sounds a little intimidating but I suppose if I want PoE devices, an NVR, etc I better start planning on it. Thank you again!

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