Intro and newbie questions

["D and M" <dandm68@xxxxxxx>]

Hello to all you UK home automation fans!

First, a little about me.  I'm Dave Meehan, and I am in the process of
building a large house extension, and the plan is to eventually gut the
existing house and completely refit internally.  I've just started looking
at the house electrics and how to setup for whole-house audio and a home
theatre setup.  I've only been looking at HA for the last few days, so am
trying to get upto speed on what you can and can't do, and what the best
practice is.  I think i'm getting there!  I'am about 3-4 weeks away from
first fit on electrics and plumbing etc, so nows a good time to think about
the type and amount of wiring I need.

It's worth noting that we are going to have a mixed old and new system for
the first couple of years, as its impractical to rewire the existing house
until the extension is complete (need somewhere to live!).  The shortlist
of requirements so far is:

* Automation of lighting systems and some appliances
* Multizone distribution of stereo audio (multi-source)
* Multizone distribution of video suitable for TV/DVD viewing

We are going to be lucky in that we will have 3 rooms that will be suitable
for home theatre setup.  Whilst I can't envisage using more than one room
for that, at this point we aren't going to be able to pick a specific room
for home theatre, and ultimately we are thinking that you'd want some
flexibility here.  We are two adults only, no children, but we are thinking
that should we ever move on, future owners might have kids and want
seperate home theatre and gaming setups for example.  Therefore we want to
make sure that we have multiple locations where you can setup for large
screen/projector viewing and surround sound sources.

Because of the older parts of the house, I think I've settled on x10 for
lighting and appliance control, as that allows me to control parts of the
existing house without the need for rewiring just yet.  I can use wireless
switches etc to supplement the existing setup and give some scene lighting
etc.

In the newer part, I'm looking at wiring for conventional switches, partly
in case I hate home automation by the time I've finished, and partly
because if we move on, someone might not be quite as geeky as us!  When I
say I'm wiring, I mean I'll put the wires in for twoway switches for lights
for example, but won't wire into switches.  In the beginning, I'll put
momentary type switches in and let the controller select the individual
lighting.  In the main lounge there will be something like 15 downlighters,
and I want some sort of scene lighting control.  It's probably overkill to
be able to control all of them individually, but that's the type of control
I'm thinking of (ok, so I can probably get away with 3 circuits here).  Any
ideas on a dimmable controller for this?

I've decided that I'll wire up a conventional ring main for sockets, and
use plug in x10 modules or replacement switch boxes to provide x10
appliance control.

It seems sensible to put Cat5e cabling into all socket and light switch
locations to allow for low voltage control, data and phone distribution. 
Unless anyone can think why not, I'm going to put 2 x Cat5e into every
switch/socket location.  I'm putting sockets into both walls of all corners
in each room (about 1m from the corner) and at something like 2m intervals
along the longer walls.  That should ensure there is plenty of appliance
outlets, and with plug in dimmers, dimmable table/floor lighting.

We have 3 locations where we can put A/V and control equipment.  We both
work from home with computers, so one of the new rooms is going to be an
office and there will be a built in computer cupboard.  This is one of the
locations.  There will be two stairwells, so two understair cupboards.  I'm
thinking of putting the main patch panel (node zero) in the loft, as this
provides the shortest cable runs to all house locations.  By putting
smaller patch panels in the 3 A/V locations, I can patch any equipment
through to all locations with relative ease.

Ok, so thats most of the 'simple' stuff as I see it.  Here are the bits I'm
less sure about:

I want to be able to distribute audio to at least 2 zones, and in an ideal
situation to all rooms of the house.  Up to 4 sources going to up to 4
zones, although the zones should be switchable.  For example, start with
music in the garden, and then move into the kitchen, whilst someone else
listening in the lounge, and then moving to their bedroom.  Rather than
flooding sound around, the sound should follow the listener!  I could see
that some sort of PIR sensor might allow this, although you probably need
to identify the individual (ibuttons maybe?)  Anyway, thats a future rather
than a now, but seems to be a good way to go.

The question is one of wiring.  Is it easier/better to wire for speakers,
and have amps centrally that can control the mixing of sources/outputs, or
send raw sound to individual rooms and have local amps and speakers?  The
latter seems the better way to go at the moment from my point of view. 
Everyone has existing stereo equipment (us included) and it seems daft to
throw that away for the sake of some nirvana setup.  It's also cheaper! 
I'm thinking I can pick up cheap amp seperates and speakers second hand
which will work fine for rooms.  As long as the amp supports IR control, it
seems I can move the music around with the listener.  If this is the case,
it seems to me that i I use something like CT100 coax, to all rooms, I've
got a high quality way of sending audio AND video to all rooms.  What I
haven't found out yet is can I send audio over coax (surely I can!)?  And
if I can, can I buy/create a device that sits at node zero and allows me to
switch multiple coax sources to multiple coax outputs? (or at
last via a patch cable from phono for example)

To hide room speaker wiring, I'm thinking of providing a coax source
connection at one point, and next to it will be a phono style speaker patch
panel.  These connections go to individual room speaker points (because of
supporting surround sound, and to give future flexibility, I'm thinking of
putting maybe 12 speaker outlets in each of the main rooms (6 floor/6
ceiling) so that you have can have a choice of floor/table or ceiling
mounted speakers around the room, to suit your budget and decorative taste.
 So, the room amp picks up the feed from the coax, and the amp connectors
plug into the desired wall sockets to route to the correct speaker
location.

Smaller rooms like bedrooms or conservatory will be setup for stereo
outputs in a similar way.  One thing I'm not sure on with the source
selection and distribution is if surround signals are compatible with
stereo only receivers, or if this needs to be through seperate switches or
the like.

And finally (at least for now), I want to make sure I wire for contact
closers, beam breaks, PIR, temp probes etc in all rooms so that I can wire
up a security system, and have HA understand when people are moving about
through the house.  At the moment, I assume that I can run cat5e to all
locations for this task.  Do I need cat5e to all doors and windows for
example, is one cable enough (4 pair)?  Are these devices line powered,
battery or mains?  Do I need power outlets near doors for example?  Can I
run CCTV images from ceiling mounted cameras over cat5 or does that need
coax?

For security, I'd like the house to be able to let me know when I go out if
I've left certain windows open (hence contact closers on windows). 
Obviously once armed, these can trigger the alarm if broken, as well as PIR
movement or beam breaks.  Most alarm systems these days look for two
detections before triggering, to cut down on false alarms, and I'd like
this too.

Oh and one last thing!  What experiences have people had with how to
control all this!  Ok, so it seems that something like HomeVision is a good
controller, but I'm talking from the point of view of how do I interact
with the system.  Does voice recognition work, should I look at touchpads
or tablet/pda type devices, wall controllers or switches, universal style
remotes, web browers or what!  I can certainly see the potential of an
automated home, but if you make it too smart, you might not be able to keep
control of the darn thing!

Sorry if that's gone on a bit!  I should say that I'm a software developer
by trade, so working with PC's is not going to be an issue, and using any
of the programming systems for the various controllers should be a snap.  I
don't understand electronics at all, but can see that some basic pointers
here could really help with building some intelligence into some of the
feedback type devices if they can't be bought off the shelf, so I'm willing
to learn on that!

Any help you can give is greatly appreciated!  Oh, and budget wise I'm open
to all suggestions, but don't want to get silly.  A grand seems like it
should cover most of the wiring for now, so let me know if that sounds
nieve!

Many many thanks in advance!
Dave










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