Home automation dabblers

[HangOutdoors]

As an example, if anyone is interested, here is how my mesh is laid out. All the lines in blue are Cat6a. Notice all traffic goes through switch back through Router/Firewall then out the modem. I have seen home installs that is not the case and everything is shooting toward modem outside of firewall. Not good at all.

Technically I have a lot more drops of Cat6a in the soffits around the house and garage since I will be putting up camera's there that will need POE since I don't like camera's with batteries and I didn't want to drop outdoor plugs all around the house.

 

[Julian]

I've run hard wire to all but one of my 4 Google mesh wifi points. The new Google mesh has no cat6 port(sucks)....so I'd avoid that.
I've also run hard wires to my primary 2 TV locations (family room and media room), and hard wires to the whole office. Just need to get a wire to my kitchen wifi point and I'm in amazing shape!

 

[Bluewater272]

Lol, life is much easy when one is ignorant. Now I have to concern myself with mesh wifi and cat 6 cables! ?

For me, this is a very timely topic and I appreciate the information given. The framing of our new home started last week, and I'm guessing we will do a walk-through with the electrician in 4 - 5 weeks for the placement of outlets, etc. They are putting cat 6 lines in the house. I hadn't really given the cat 6 lines much thought as we don't use cable for TV and stream everything over the internet. Guess I need to take a second look at the cat 6 lines.

The new house will be about 2400 square feet on the main floor (with the master bedroom and two other bedrooms down) and 1,000 square feet (of finished space) on the second floor. The contract comes with four cat 6 lines, but we can add as many extra as we want to pay for. TV buffering while streaming, has always been our biggest internet complaint, (well, not our biggest, that would be paying for gigabit service and getting 240 mb when we do speed tests!)

I'm guessing we will run six cat 6 lines in the house, four downstairs (living room and three bedrooms) and two additional cat 6 lines upstairs. Any advantage to running a cat 6 line to the garage (it's at the front of the house)? We also won't have a basement, only a crawlspace. So, I'm guessing we would probably want to connect all the smart tv's to cat 6 cables and have two mesh routers, one downstairs and one upstairs?

Jim

Personally, I would have drops everywhere you think you might ever need them, and then a few extra. For sure, in the office, in each bedroom, anywhere you have a TV. I have a line in my garage for one of the google units, and dropped one into my crawlspace which I eventually ran into the backyard (with direct bury rated cable). Since its a new build, you might even consider a more 'advanced' network with wireless access points mounted to the ceiling (can be powered by the ethernet). Additionally, if you have any plans for security cameras, I'd just go ahead and place ethernet there too, most of my cameras are PoE so no extra power source needed.

Nice to have the chance to do it 'right' up front. Since my house is older, all of this had to be added piecemeal, and is not ideal in any way - but its fast. I ended up having to place several network switches around the house to branch out and feed what I need.

 

[tabbibus]

Man. If I had a house just on frames I would cat6 the shit out of it. Heck put one on the bathrooms. Haha.

 

[HangOutdoors]

@tabbibus That is what I did in my last house that was built which we no longer live in. Every room had two network drops and a cable in it. So a wall receptacle with two network jacks and cable outlet at least one in every room. Including Bathrooms, kitchens and Hallways over 80 individual lines. Once finished, never used more than 20% of them. This was back in 2003-2005. Wireless was not great back then. Now with Wireless 6 spec. I wired this house, which we tore out drywall in half of it during the remodel with dual runs in only main rooms with cable jack, except for library/office which has them on both sides of the room. Just in case. And I wired double runs in all four corners of the house outside in the soffets for POE cameras and around the garage outside and the pole on the pool for POE Camera. It is way overkill and not what I would recommend. I had a 2000' spool of Cat6a already and 600' of cable, so I went over board. So I figured what the hell.

But that is overkill for most. That is why in my drawing above I minimized and shown the base for a 2500' sq. ft home and back haul wiring.

Also I don't use the ISP's wireless or their modem. I use an Aris Surfboard Modem DOCSIS 3.1, Multi-Gigabit Cable Modem. I like having control over my own stuff for privacy and security. The day my ISP offers multiline for 2gigabit all I need to do is connect the second line to the modem and my network is ready to take advantage of it, of course those devices that can. The router, cables and switch can handle 10 gigabit.

This is how my jacks look.

 

[RightStuff]

Additionally, if you have any plans for security cameras, I'd just go ahead and place ethernet there too, most of my cameras are PoE so no extra power source needed.

Plus one on everything @seanmclean said above, but especially this point. I luckily had a bonus room above my garage that was unfinished when I built my house. So when it came to finishing that space I ran Cat6 to all the places around my house I wanted cameras via that room, boom PoE to all the places!

 

[Jim_in_Delaware]

Folks,

I would appreciate any thoughts on cat 6 wiring and mesh wi-fi systems for our retirement home that we are building. My wife and I are doing a mechanical walk though with both the electrician and the hvac guys next week.

My understanding is that there is cable internet (only a single provider) servicing our small development of 60 homes and I do not know the quality of the service.

I don't know if we have have this many TV's, but their is a possibility of TV's in all 4 bedrooms, the living room, and the upstairs bonus room. My wife will set up her computer in bedroom #2 (as this will serve as her home office). My computer will be upstairs in the bonus room. Thinking about setting up the router in my wife's office (bedroom [HASH=132]#2)[/HASH].

The unfinished storage (above the garage) is an interesting space. Depending on the cost, we are thinking about running HVAC to this area as well (14' x 24'). We may, or may not, decide to finish this space someday.

I would appreciate any feedback on how to set up a mesh wi-fi system for this house and if y'all think that we should run cat 6 lines to all the places (identified in red) in the drawings below.




Jim

 

[tabbibus]

Folks,

I would appreciate any thoughts on cat 6 wiring and mesh wi-fi systems for our retirement home that we are building. My wife and I are doing a mechanical walk though with both the electrician and the hvac guys next week.

My understanding is that there is cable internet (only a single provider) servicing our small development of 60 homes and I do not know the quality of the service.

I don't know if we have have this many TV's, but their is a possibility of TV's in all 4 bedrooms, the living room, and the upstairs bonus room. My wife will set up her computer in bedroom #2 (as this will serve as her home office). My computer will be upstairs in the bonus room. Thinking about setting up the router in my wife's office (bedroom [HASH=132]#2)[/HASH].

The unfinished storage (above the garage) is an interesting space. Depending on the cost, we are thinking about running HVAC to this area as well (14' x 24'). We may, or may not, decide to finish this space someday.

I would appreciate any feedback on how to set up a mesh wi-fi system for this house and if y'all think that we should run cat 6 lines to all the places (identified in red) in the drawings below.

View attachment 165527
View attachment 165528

Jim

I'm not great with design and planning. But if I were building a new house I would run cat6 to every room (if not cost prohibitive). Wired connections are still the gold standard. All my important systems in my house are wired. My work PC, my wife's, PC, the movie watching TV, the great room / social TV. All wired. I had to se MOCA which is more expensive but easier than running cat6 on a finished house. If you put a cat6 drop everywhere you don't have to worry about perfect placement of your mesh spots.

 

[HangOutdoors]

I agree with @tabbibus! If you can drop at least 1 cat 6 line at every location. Remember you will need Two Cat6 runs where ever you will be placing your router and modem. In my house where ever I remodeled, I put in two Cat6 and 1 cable jack in every location and ran them all back to a central spot in the basement where I have modem and switches. This way have the most options. If you don't use them you don't use them.

Worry about the Mesh once the home is built and done. Then you can place your Wireless Router and additional access points through out the house where they are needed. This way you can get optimal coverage as you are testing and also have the wired backhaul.

 

[Jim_in_Delaware]

Forgot to mention that we no longer do cable service for the TV's, as we much prefer streaming services on the internet.

 

[HangOutdoors]

Forgot to mention that we no longer do cable service for the TV's, as we much prefer streaming services on the internet.

Makes sense. But..... We did the same until Xfinity came out with a deal in our market that included 7 streaming services like Disney+, Paramount, Discovery, etc. etc. packaged together with their service for far less than me paying for them all so switch back to their cable box, which is nice since it frees up wireless and internal network bandwidth a bit. When their price goes up I will cut the cord again.

Seeing that a lot more since people started going away from them.

Anyhow with both in my house wired throughout I have the options of anything I want.

 

[Jim_in_Delaware]

Any last thoughts? We are doing the walk through with the electrician tomorrow morning?

Thanks,

Jim

 

[tabbibus]

Cat 6 drops everywhere! As far as the eye can see! Within reason, this is truly the best approach.

 

[Julian]

Any last thoughts? We are doing the walk through with the electrician tomorrow morning?

Thanks,

Jim

If I were building a new house I would differ with @HangOutdoors on one point. I would be seriously thinking about both wired and wifi networks while building. I would put wired network drops in every room, AND I would plan out my mesh system and where optimal wifi points would be located (and have wired drops there). This might mean on a ceiling or central wall where you don't have a TV. In the grand scheme of things its MUCH cheaper to put the drop in now than later!!!
Also, much like Google did, I expect most mesh systems with include digital assistants in one device in the future. Helpful to have that somewhere it can hear you well. (But I'm a self professed geek).

 

[TimW451]

If you want to hardwire I would put one coax and one data cable at each point you’ve flagged, except for the computer in bedroom [HASH=15]#2,[/HASH] which can connect via Wi-Fi and it would be overly redundant with the TV being opposite. This will give you hardwire at each spot regardless of tech evolution. I‘d make the upstairs office your cable modem location with the dual data lines as @HangOutdoors mentioned if it isn’t convenient to have it wherever your ingress/hub is.

A 3 piece mesh system is probably sufficient for Wi-Fi. I’d start with them in the upstairs office, bedroom 2, and the fireplace mantel, then tune from there. You do want to hardwire these. They will probably be you firewall also, so you want the main one directly plugged into you cable modem and then feeding the rest of the network: Internet—- Cable Modem—- Mesh (firewall)—- Wired Network.

That said, above is how I wired my house in 2005, and I just decommissioned most of the wiring and hubs because I dropped cable and stream everything using 4k AppleTVs on Wi-Fi. The mesh network is so good I have no bandwidth or latency issues impairing the video quality. I’ve always worked from home and have been exclusively on Wi-Fi for 4-5 years for my main computer. Even with everyone home for COVID the Wi-Fi was not taxed. My two main mesh APs are hardwired, the other two are not. I use a TPLink Deco 5 mesh system.

Note on cabling, i.e., Cat [HASH=143]#.[/HASH] Ask what they are using. A lot of home builders are still using “Cat 5”. If they are make sure it is actually Cat5e that is the minimum for Gbit speed. (They probably won’t know unless you are talking to the sub doing the install). Ideally it will be Cat 6 and you won’t have to worry about anything. There is a similar concern with coax, but it only applies if you are doing satellite video, and I don’t know if it is still a thing or not.

HTH

 

[msavold]

@Jim_in_Delaware one suggestion for you: when we built our house in 1994, I had them run a piece of 2" PVC pipe from the basement to the attic and another one in the basement from where the fiber/power/cable come in to the opposite side of the house. They've been useful over the years. Who knows? In a few years you might want to pull some CAT9 or whatever the latest is at that point! Lord knows the twisted pair phone wires and coax we have around the house are pretty much useless now.

BTW, @Julian we "discovered" Lutron Caseta when we remodeled the kitchen and the electrician looked at me like I was nuts for suggesting pulling wires to add some three ways! Great system but yeah, not cheap! At our beach house we have a z-wave setup (with a Vera controller) that fluctuates between 'pretty good' and POS!

 

[marcham]

My wife would like to thank (not!) everyone here for all the great ideas. In the last 3 weeks I dropped Smarthings, moved all my zwave devices to home assistant which I built on a raspberry pi and added several more switches and sensors. Steep learning curve but we'll worth it.

.... how can I sell her on doing this next?

 

[marcham]

Folks,

I would appreciate any thoughts on cat 6 wiring and mesh wi-fi systems for our retirement home that we are building. My wife and I are doing a mechanical walk though with both the electrician and the hvac guys next week.

My understanding is that there is cable internet (only a single provider) servicing our small development of 60 homes and I do not know the quality of the service.

Jim

I'd apply for Starlink or talk to the neighbors about the internet quality.

If you have 20Mbps or faster service, you could consider dropping cable and only using streaming services.

From a security standpoint, we don't use wi-fi devices for banking, so some cat6 or cat7 to each room might be a good idea. Wired connections also reduces network congestion for streaming devices.

Maybe plan a cabinet where the coax enters the house to hold routers, cat6/7 patch panels, NAS storage devices, internet gateway, alarm system, etc....? Depending on the size of the house, plan a cat 6 wired backhaul to support a mesh wi-fi network. You'll need several outlets here as well.

What about pre wiring a room for 7.1 surround sound? Outdoor speakers? In wall wiring for hdmi? Recessed wall plugs for TV locations?

I'd definitely plan power and hvac to the bonus room above the garage. Would make a great workshop or storage area. You could always zone that part of the hvac and close the zone if it's not used.

Structured Home Wiring

Information on Future Wiring a Smart Home. From planning to installation for audio, home theater, security, surveillance, & home automation.

www.structuredhomewiring.com

Sometimes, a low voltage specialist can do the networking and sound wiring better and cheaper than an electrician.

Can you plan for a heat pump water heater? They pay for themselves in just a few years but require outside ducts.

 

[Bluewater272]

My wife would like to thank (not!) everyone here for all the great ideas. In the last 3 weeks I dropped Smarthings, moved all my zwave devices to home assistant which I built on a raspberry pi and added several more switches and sensors. Steep learning curve but we'll worth it.

.... how can I sell her on doing this next?

Nice work. I still have all my devices on the Smartthings hub, but let them be controlled by HA. Check out Node Red if you haven't already.

 

[Jim_in_Delaware]

I want to thank everyone for their helpful comments. We decided on running eight cat6 lines (with coaxial cable) in all the spots identified in my drawings below. I also added a cat6 to the unfinished room above the garage in case we ever do something with this room. The cat6 lines will run into a hub in the closet near the front door. We will likely add a mesh wifi system when we move into the house.

Y'all also go me thinking about a home security system, so I am planning on PoE cameras connected to a PoE/NVR. The PoE/NVR will be connected via one of the cat6 cables to the Router Hub at one of spots in the second floor bonus room. I don't think it will be to difficult to run cat6 cables from the cameras to the PoE switch, so I plan on doing this myself at a later date.


Regarding internet service, this is something that we are still looking into. Our choices seem to be Mediacom for cable internet or Satellite internet. We are seriously considering Starlink for this service, but we will further investigate both.

Jim