Entering hte minefield of an autoimated home

[Dre]

To my esteemed forumites,

I've been reading many of the articles and seem to have just gone round in circles and am now totally confused. So looking for you to bear through my ramblings and provide your expert advice. I looking for options, budget is tight but not non existent!

I am doing a whole renovation and will be looking to rewire for automation & home cinema -

For the Home Cinema Im thinking of independent audio and video/tv to at least two zones but possibly 4 TV and 8 audio (if its not to much different)

Initial setup thoughts -
CAT 6e

https://www.blackbox.co.uk/gb-gb/fi/...MHz-solid-PVC/

• 4 to each tv point
• 1 to wall controller
• 1 to highest point in middle of house for Ubiquiti WIFI
• CAT6e with HDBaseT to PJ for 4k or should I use Hybrid HDMI from downstairs PJ and lounge TV zone
• Optical cable in main zones back to amp
• Subwoofer cable (RCA) to sub point from Amp
• RCA to record player
• Speaker wire to low points in lounge to wall speakers
• Freeview aerial? via RF - min 1 X RG6
• 1 from virgin media entry point to hub
For home alarm recording to a NVR -

• CAT 5e to POE camera
• CAT 5e to motion points and door sensors
• CAT5e to video doorbell and back to room plate for video panel
• CAT 5e to alarm box

For lighting -

• Philips Hue?
• Lightwave RF? – Can do heating as well?
• LED Strip lighting in channels
o For the ground floor living room I need ceiling LED strip lighting. Room size approx 3mx5m. I also want above kitchen cabinets 4m run and 5 m run.
For the ground floor entrance hallway and stairs I was looking at LED strip lighting on top of the skirting boards. These would come on based on either darkness, time or movement.
For the first floor I want low level LED spots in the en suite and bathroom, I also want LED strip lighting in the landing. Again these would come on based on either darkness, time or movement. Ideally movement in the bathrooms
For the second floor I want the same as first in the bathroom and stair and landing
For the heating -

Needs to control rads, water based UFH and electric UFH

• EVOhome? https://theevohomeshop.co.uk/
• Heatmiser?
Others
• Velux control (open/close)
• and
• Mycroft.ai for open source voice assistant (non cloud based)

So if you have got this far...thank you. As you can see I want to do a lot and am feeling lost and bewildered on my choices!

Any advice is very much appreciated.

Dre

[toscal]

I would use CAT6 through out. Then you have just one type of network cable to worry about. Black Box can be very expensive, so try Amazon.
Have a look at Loxone . This will do most if not all the things you want. So it will do the lights, heating and I am pretty sure it will also do the velux windows.

[Dre]

Thanks Toscal...will check Loxone and appreciate the advice re same CAT. Looking at your link, what are your thought on the LED lighting setup I was thinking about?

[toscal]

I know one of the UK Loxone installers has installed LED skirting board lighting, but its not cheap.
If you need help with the LED lighting strips I can help you as apart from installing home automation systems , I design LED lighting systems.
IF you do use strips then make sure your power supply is at least 10 to 15% more powerful than you need. So if your strip consumes 25W then your power supply should be 28.75W which in reality would mean probably either a 30W or 50W. This should take care of any voltage drops due to cable lengths. these days I prefer 24V strips rather than 12V. Plus 24v is what Loxone uses for a lot of its modules.
I always connect up to the strips at both ends on anything over 5m, and it doesn't hurt on shorter runs either. This stops gradual dimming you may see on longer runs, and if in the unlikely event an LED dies then its only that one that goes out and not the rest after it as well. My longest continuous colour change strip I did was for a bar and this was 10m long. I've also done 25m but this wasn't one long strip but 25 1m strips using RGB amplifiers spaced every 5m with each amplifier signals connected at either end, this was for LED lighting behind some shelving in a bar. Each strip was custom made on site with special connectors at either end so if one stopped working it could be changed out in seconds in five years I changed out 3 (not bad when you consider they where on 18 hours a day. Took 3 days to install.
The reason for mentioning this is that you may want to think about how it will all connect up. Sometimes its not just simply plug and play.
While I have done strip lighting for various rooms in houses from hallways, to snooker rooms to gyms in houses, the longer the strip the more potential problems you can have just trying to connect it up. I would also invest in a good quality gas powered soldering iron.
There are also very good colour change spots on the market these days.
One thing to remember is how are you going to control all this, you don't want to end up with 15 remotes just to switch the lights on.
This is why I suggested Loxone as it can probably do everything you need.