Creating a Clever Home?

eKto1 asks: "We've recently purchased an older, dated home which we are in the process of gutting and restructuring. While there are no walls, we are obviously running the standard Cat5, and speaker cable to each and every room, however we would also like to modernize the house even more by making it intelligent, as in 'Smart'. I'd like to install touch screens in the majority of the rooms, to control things such as media (separate audio and video to each wall unit), lighting, temperature, etc. For those of you on Slashdot who have done this, what has your experience been? Are there guides for doing this easily and effectively, without having to sell the farm? Is there a way to allow distributed content to head units while keeping servers down to one or 2 units?"

Conduit

[andreMA]

A vertical run of conduit (hopefully through closets) from basement to attic will likely save you headaches later.

Why?

[duffbeer703]

You're going to end up with a "buggy" house that is unsellable.

Do you really want to be dependent on a server for your thermostats & lights to work properly? Or have to rip out and replace video gear every few years when your OS or applications change?

So you'll shell out thousands on computer & X10 equipment, then when you decide to move, you're left losing gobs of cash unless you find some dork who wants to take on a house full of aging computer & control equipment.

I won't even get into having a TV in every room.

worry about energy costs first

[bluGill]

Maybe you already are, but just in case (and for those who are considering this): consider energy costs first.

Smart homes seems like a neat idea, but what is the gain over just putting a stereo in each room, and a wi-fi receiver for those rooms where you really want mp3s? (As long as you need to remove the inside walls anyway you may as well run CAT-5, but for most people wi-fi works well)

Spend your budget first on low-E windows, and good insulation. Then put in a good heating/cooling system (preferably a ground source heat pump).

Saving energy will make the world a better place, and in the long run is good for your wallet. Your 'smart home' is not very smart if it wastes energy, and at best won't make the world a better place.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against the idea. I'm just urging you to take care of the important parts first, then the toys. I also encourage you to think about the toys. If you don't have a radio of some sort in your current bathroom, why put one in.

Re:Conduit

[stefanlasiewski]

And put strings in the conduit. When you want to install new wire, just tie the string to the wire, and use the strong to pull the wire through the conduit. I've known people to lay multiple strings in the conduit, so you can pull new wires in, old wires out, etc.

Shoving wire through a conduit will drive you crazy.

I usually use a file to smooth out any jagged metal on the ends of any freshly-cut pipes. If you don't do that, the wire may get damaged as you pull/push the wire through the pipe.

Some baby powder can help make the wires slide easier.

Re:only worry about infrastructure now

[BoomerSooner]

Are you kidding me? 1 socket on each stud? Do you realize studs are 18" apart which in a 10x10 room means you have around 26 plugs? WTF would someone need that for? Not to mention copper is f'ing expensive. Go to lowes or home depot and look at how much copper wiring costs.

BTW I build homes for a living.

Re:Why?

[JabberWokky]

Higher end houses (when you exceed a million dollars) already have all this equipment, and it is quite reliable. X10 is the dirt cheap knockoff end of the home automation market. The good stuff is very fault tolerant, ages well and is quite expensive. Rich people like their toys and don't tolerate things that don't work.

Depending on how he's planning on doing it, it will be very stable and reliable. (But given the way he's worded things, I don't think he's planning on doing it with experts).

--
Evan

Remember, whatever you do will be obsolete quickly

[Ken Hall]

I've been into this for close to 30 years now. I've been in my current house for 17 years, and I've rewired FOUR TIMES as the technology has changed.

I can absolutely tell you that the most important thing you can provide is ACCESS. Several others have mentioned conduits and wiring channels, and I can't overemphasize how much I agree with that. The only thing that's saved me is the suspended ceiling downstairs, and the clear opening between there and the attic. You don't want to be opening walls a year or two down the road because you need a new kind of wire somewhere.

X10 is great when it works, but it's inherently limited. Unfortunately, the alternatives are WAY more expensive. You can do a really cool setup with a couple hundred dollars worth of X10 stuff, and old Linux PC, and a web app from Freshmeat. Start off simple, you can always add wireless tablets as touch screens down the road when someone is selling them off cheap.

Re:only worry about infrastructure now

[Marxist Hacker 42]

26 plugs is just about right for a kid's bedroom if your kid is as geeky as most parents on slashdot become.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:only worry about infrastructure now

[gregmac]

here's what i can remember having plugged in in my living room: tv, vcr, dvd player, sterio, subwoofer, 2 lamps, 3 laptops, 1 hub, 1 vga -> ntsc converter, 2 cell phone chargers. that's 14 plugs that i can remember right now.

So lets say your tv, vcr, dvd player, stereo, sub, hub, vga converter, a laptop and a cell phone charger all together on a tv stand of some sort, while the rest of the stuff is around the rest of the room. That means you take up 5 sockets (2 plugs each), which is 80" of wall. Instead of having them plugged into a decent sized power bar and all contained behind the tv, you have them all string out across the wall.

We won't get into how you have no surge protection close to the device, either.

Re:Why?

[JabberWokky]

Heh. You'd be surprised. Check out science.slashdot.org, and the level leaps up -- at least for the stories that *don't* get posted to the home page. In fact, if a story does not get posted to the home page, it's very likely people in the discussion are actual experts.

I do note that most topics on Ask Slashdot (anything you'd either hire an expensive expert for, or can only be figured out by doing serious book reading research) get useless replies. Also anything with competition - if you say "What's a good way to do foo with Perl?", you'll get 50 answers on how to do it with PHP, 170 with Ruby, 7 in emacs, and 1 in either Intercal or Ada. And zero useful answers.

Incidently, if you actually want to use Ask Slashdot as a resource, there is a way: bookmark the discussion, wait a week or two, and then go back through it looking for links or references. A few people have likely posted a link or three to really nicely complete sites or cited a (gasp!) book that is nice. Watch for names to pick out too; you can find actual experts on the subject that people mention in their post.

--
Evan