I am building my house. Need advice on making provisions for automation

Projects General Guidance
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Hey Guys, I am a novice relating to programming. I am building my home from ground up (brick and cement) and thought it will be easier to make provisions now rather than think and break the house later to add stuff. I am looking to automate all the switches in house and control them using phone and let me dim lights, monitor current usage. I dont know what else can be done at this point so any ideas that you guys can throw up is also much appreciated.

I have heard of using relay switch with arduino to control switches. But I am not sure if I have to have this set up in ever switch board in the house and how they will communicate with phone. What provisions should be making so that this installation can be done?

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To grossly over-simplify the situation there are two options ...

Control everything from a central location - for example if you were using traditional switches they would all be in the cupboard under the stairs and there would be no switches in rooms. This almost certainly means a lot more wiring but it has the advantage that there is a single control system.

Control everything from distributed locations - for example the traditional system of having a light switch inside the door to every room. This will require some sort of electronic gadget at each switch location.

Monitoring energy consumption raises a different sort of question - how many circuits do you want to monitor. There must be a cut-off at which the extra cost of more detailed monitoring is too high relative to the potential energy savings. And if you have a system that "knows" what appliances / circuits are in use you may be able to derive a lot of data from the differential current flow in the main incoming circuit.

And make sure everything is certified to comply with your local wiring regulations.

...R

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(deleted)

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You can't go wrong with Cat6 cable. It's cheap and good. Even Cat5e can be good enough.

There are wireless controllers for led lights. That might be the best solution.

You could add an empty box in the wall next to every switch and wall plug (the same box as the one for a switch). But I doubt if it is a good and safe solution to have controllers everywhere.
When I added a timer for a fan into such a box, I had a lot of trouble getting it in. Therefor an extra empty box can be useful.

In my country, about 20 years ago, the central heating pipes go from one radiator to another radiator and so on. Some people had some kind of automatic splitters embedded in the concrete floor (that stopped working after a while).
Today there is often a central location on every floor, and both radiator tubes go to the central location. All tubes to the radiators are red, and all tubes from the radiators are blue.
In the same way, I think that the ideal house has every mains wire to a central location.

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if X10 is used the powerlines are used also as communication, however everything is under tension.
another way is to have a central box in every room and run separate wires to every light and socket. i did this and i have sockets on height switched and on the floor for tv, etc.
in evening i just push a switch near door and all lights will stop.

it is not allowed to run ethernet cable in same pipe, so you will need to make lots of pipes in the wall to a central place.
in europe the central is at the ceiling so not very practical.

best to have 3 pipes to most places, and all going to a central place to make the connections.
watch carefully the separation of phases.

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did you think of:

  • external doors
  • internal doors
  • windows.
  • movement sensors
  • GB Ethernet in all rooms
  • emergency light on battery in strategic places
  • smoke alarms
  • sensors in the garden / garage
  • ...
7

I'd make ligth switches compatible with control over wifi, so they can be switches in both ways, manual or remote.

I'd put sensors on windows and doors to monitor which are closed/open

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Don't forget to make a good earth ground deep into the ground.
You could add a temperature sensor and geophone a few meters under your house.
Make photos where the wires are, before covering them.
What about covering the complete house in copper mesh ?

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In wiring our house, I went for the "central location" version - all mains cabling runs from a central control box (full of relays), and all switch points are wired with low voltage wiring to this.

Plan where you want cable ducting for later additions such as solar panels - also lagged piping (up and down runs) for roof-mounted hot water collectors if you have multiple levels.

And - Wi-Fi is not reliable. You want Ethernet cable (Cat 6) to each room for computers and telephone. (Cordless phones are not reliable either.)

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Hi,
There is a Home Automation section in this forum.

Tom..... :slight_smile:

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Something that has not been mentioned is space needed to house any hardware that may be needed for control. Things are pretty tight within a single gang box with an outlet and 12/2 cable. Perhaps something like this might be of use. - Scotty

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the whole wireless thing is becoming more and more common. I expect that in a few years, the internet of things will have more of an established backbone.

I would look at creating a wireless module that could be placed inside of, or next to, an electrical switch box.

in the US, we have duplex receptacles, these can be separated so you can have one that is switched and one that is powered constantly.

as has been noted, the space inside of a switch box is at a premium and there is little spare room for boards. however, if you look at a dimmer, the enclosure is deeper than a receptacle. and if you buy one specific receptacle, you could bring out terminal connectors that could be screwed directly on to the screws so that they are both electrical connections and mounting connections. then have your board attached.

if you look at switch boxes, there are deep boxes that accommodate more space for wire nuts and the like. there are a few that have a side box area that is hidden.

I would offer that there a 39 cent receptacles that have a very slim contact point for your plug and there are spec. grade that have a much larger surface area in contact. often over $8 each so there is a lot of price difference, but you get what you pay for. much cheaper in quantity.

I also suspect that these receptacles will be available soon enough from the big players. not sure if I just come up with the idea and dropped into the public domain. if you run with this, please send me some stock in your company.

if making one, a zero cross switching would be simple enough to add and should extend the life off your board as well as the things connected.

It seems to me that with a receptacle pack, one could retrofit any house.

then, as to control. you could have a transmitter in areas of the house so that you can control your points remotely from off-site, or locally with some form of wireless.

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shooter:
it is not allowed to run ethernet cable in same pipe,

This can add significant cost although in a new build not so much.

Check your local building codes with an electrician.

Dont forget any switching equipment will need to be approved.

There are lots of ir controlled automation bits around, perhaps running cable to all the cielings to install an ir led from a central location would fit the bill.

Best bet is to find what equipment is available and find out what its wiring requirments are.

Having low and high voltages into a wall box is not permitted unless the box has the required approvals.

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since the terminology is based on your frame of reference. high voltage is 120VAC in the US and 220 in other parts of the world, and low is like 5 volts or even 48 volts.

so, for our slang use of the voltages, you cannot mix your low, signal voltages in the same pipe or same box. WITHOUT isolation. you just have to create some sort of barrier between the two.

you can run your CAT-5 cable without any pipe, so it can be run in the same wall, and next to your hard pipe. or if you are running Romex or plastic insulated wires, you would want to run these separately to reduce any potential problems.

that said, you can connect wire through your box, or have signals pass through the box.

my preference would be 120v power and wireless, all inside of the box, not sure how you would do the power supply..... have not worked out all the kinks......