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  • Bowerbirdy
    Automated Home Lurker
    • Jan 2018
    • 1

    Hi All

    Hi All,

    Been living in a 1949 semi-detatched ex-council house for a while slowly working through room by room and 'modernising' it.

    So far I have done (almost) two rooms, bathroom and utility room (which was just a single skin brick shed).

    All the while, I am a software engineer by trade so I have not failed to notice the 'smart home epidemic' and I only expect it's going to become bigger.

    So, I'd like to go some way towards bringing our 50's house into the 21st century.

    I definitely would like to get coax cable into the bedrooms, the living room and the kitchen and forever increasingly more disappointed with wifi and powerline adapters I'm tempted to run ethernet to every room in the house too!

    In general, I'd like to install a few foundations for which to build a smart home on top of however I'm not planning to go completely overboard as we do intend to move in the future - but I'd like to take this opportunity to learn the fundamentals of building a smart home and leave behind a good foundation for the next owner to take advantage of (i.e. the wiring! Electrical, Data and AV)

    I've been reading your guide and I think at a minimum I'd be looking at having a 24 port patch panel with cat5e solid copper core cable running to each room (I'd plan to have at least 1 ethernet socket in the remaining rooms) - away from the mains and crossing perpendicular to avoid interference. In addition to this PF100 cable from the roof ariel into a 5 way TV distribution amplifier to the 3 bedrooms, the living room and the kitchen.

    Then on top of that, I'd have a bunch of equipment to bring it all together and automate the home (but which I would intend on taking with me to my future home!)

    The main thing for me is creating a good foundation that I can build upon and that future owners can build upon

    Cheers
    Last edited by Bowerbirdy; 19 January 2018, 07:10 PM.
  • MichaelD
    Automated Home Guru
    • Mar 2006
    • 167

    #2
    Welcome to the forum. Sounds like you're setting off in a good direction, although you might want to look at Cat6 cabling rather than 5e (or maybe go to 6e, depending on how long you are planning to be in the current house)

    WiFi is improving in both performance and reliability, but it doesn't get near the solid performance and reliability of cable, so having your critical links using cable is a great idea. And the more you make things smart, the more sluggish they get when they are wireless or 433MHz and start interfering with each other.

    I'm probably about 15 years ahead of you, with a crazy 300+ Internet connected Things, and going through a complete technology uplift, so looking at what has worked and what hasn't done so well. And some wireless choices are definitely getting too unreliable. I managed to completely flood the airwaves round my house with overchatty zigbee devices, and had to switch everything off to let it clear, adding things back one at a time until everything choked again. Never had that problem with wires!

    Comment

    • noel-pilot
      Automated Home Jr Member
      • May 2005
      • 37

      #3
      I'd echo what Michael has said in terms of cat 6/6e. The original automated home wiring guide is still a good read, I'd definitely suggest multiple cat 6 runs to each room.

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