Re: Newbie confusion - wiring guide and product selection

[David Gumbrell <david.gumbrell@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Dave,

Firstly consider a structured CAT5e infrastructure with outlets at
useful places. CAT5e is a pretty useful cable, you can use it for your
LAN, for video distribution and for analogue telephony or VoIP over
the LAN. A structured system means that you run an individual cable to
each convenient outlet point and all the other ends come together at a
single patch panel. This allows you flexibility in assigning the usage
of each cable run to different functions. In other words, this cabling
is independent of product choice.

There are various ways of doing audio distribution, either the
"old"
way with a central zoned amp and then wire runs to each speaker
position, or the modern way using a central music server and discrete
players connected via either your LAN or WiFi network, such as the
Sonos players (just work, but quite closed) or Logitech Squeeze boxes
(almost just work but very open to extension). So this might affect
your choice of outlet positions.

Video distribution tend to be more tricky, since it's a moving target
with the move to HDMI etc. Again, you can have distributed players and
a central video server, typically using LAN cabling, since WiFi
doesn't have the bandwidth for high-def. Or you can have dedicated
cabling for lower quality analogue signals. There are also some quite
expensive products that can push various grades of video over your LAN
cabling. In this case you are dedicating that particular run of cable
to video, it is not actually being used for the LAN in this case. You
also want to be thinking about bring aerial or satellite signals down
to typical PVR/Sky box positions, such as the living room. So on video
you want to be belt and braces and run both CAT5e and decent grade
coax to the most likely places. This also covers your bets for things
like telephone feed to Sky box (over the CAT) or putting something
like a SlingBox with your PVR or Sky Box and then connecting it to
your LAN.

Which brings me to the HA side. Yes, I think SmartHomes for Dummies is
a bit out of date, and was a little biased to the US market. X-10 is a
very dated technology and has many drawbacks - perhaps the biggest
being the predictability of whether your installation is going to be
interference-free. So then it comes down to wired systems based on
dedicated wiring or wireless solutions like Rako and Z-wave.

If you plan on using a wireless solution for HA then you need to find
a way of assessing how well the signals are going to propagate in your
property before investing too much. Different methods of construction
can have significantly different effects on this. Personally I would
only consider it for secondary circuits, like plug-in lamps and
appliances, based on my experiences in my property.

Although the various systems have similarities, they also have
sufficient differences in capabilities as well as cabling consequences
that you will have to decide on your product mix before you can
finalise your cable plan. As you investigate the capabilities of your
candidates you will find some might offer functionality over others
that you might not want immediately but would like later - in these
cases you need to cable speculatively, since I doubt you'll be allowed
to rip floors up and chase walls twice :-)

In other words, for the HA side you need to survey the possibilities
in terms of current and future functionality, and then pick your
product(s) and then design your wiring scheme.

You've had some recommendations - my personal choice is Idratek. I
believe it is unique in the level of it's off-the-shelf capability and
integration, whilst still offering several ways to interface it to
third party solutions. Rather than give a laundry list of functions, I
recommend you look at the AutomatedHome Idratek forum and, if I may
humbly suggest, my blog at www.gumbrell.com for some examples.

Cheers

David



On 24 Feb 2009, at 13:02, rclhome wrote:

> Hi All,
> Aplogies if this is too common a question, but I've searched the
> archives and can't really find what I'm looking for.
>
> I've recently purchased a house that needs a lot of renovation and
> would like to add some automation. I'd originally planned on using
> X10, as I'd read quite a bit about it and that was all I was aware of.
> I armed myself with "Smarthomes for Dummies" and the
"Automated Home"
> wiring guide and was ready to add all the wiring I need.
>
> However, on further investigation I'm now confused what to do. I hear
> X10 can be unreliable and have come across things like Idratek, xPL,
> xAp etc. I don't want to make a mistake at this stage and end up with
> something in the walls that may not be too much use later! It now
> seems there are hundred different ways of achieving what I want and I
> don't know how to select the best options for me.
>
> My rough requirements are: I'd like to end up with a system that will
> allow me to have a data LAN, control the lights, connect phones (was
> originally planning on using Asterisk), connect into the security
> system and have a (simple) audio/video distribution. I don't mind
> paying/using something proprietry, but would like to be able to
> manipulate things myself later and would be quite happy to write
> code/scripts to do so if required.
>
> I'm hoping someone has a few pointers to help me to move forward with
> this, such as are there any suggested "best practices"? Do I
have to
> select the products first then wire to suit? Is "Smarthomes for
> dummies" out of date now? Should I move to proprietry products?
>
> Thanks for any help. Dave
>
>
>



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