Home Automation - lighting & media

[elster]

I am going to be buying a house to renovate in October so looking at adding a few extras, just pricing these bits up now.

I would like to be able to control all the lighting intelligently and also be able to have music through a central control.

I don't know much about this kind of stuff as haven't owned my own home for a while.

It will be a 8-10 Bedroom house so would be looking at a reasonable size. As it is a complete from scratch renovation then it makes sense to include such luxuries at this stage. However there are so many different products out there. I have some experience with Lutron Grafik eye, which I think is a bit OTT for my application. What would people recommend for amid range budget and also who are good suppliers to use?

At the moment just looking to price up as not bought a house yet, but will be happening in October, post September wedding.

[elster]

Thanks all for some suggestions and insight.

I should clarify that this isn't going to be done in the UK and will be being installed by myself. I do industrial electrics for a living, so the physical side of it is easy for me to install. As most of my work is PLCs, so I do have a rough idea of what is going on, just not on the programming side but I am willing to learn. If need be I can pay someone to programme it for me.

I was expecting a budget of sub £10k, so definitely not the £100k installations. So maybe I was over egging the mid range, I am going blind into this hence the research now.

I would like to avoid the lutron, as personally I wasn't over enamored with it. This was a Grafik eye QS.

I do like the idea of having it din rail mounted so it will all be done in a central location, such as the Loxone. I like the idea of being able to control it from an android device that would also be used for music as well.

Are there similar items that I could look at to compare?

[elster]

lamboman100 said:

Wait for Apple iHome.

Everything made before that will just look dated and become quickly obsolete.

One of the reasons why I would like a centrally wired system means that it can be changed in future easily.

[elster]

VEX said:

Nothing has changed as far as i am concerned, Toxic.

Rates you have indicated are right for me as well. Rescued several projects recently providing the original installer doesn't change to default password then most programs can be extracted and changed.

Even the cheap systems suffer from the same problem, on client has a Bitwise system, installer disappeared with program and you can't extract that. It's a one time upload only.

I and my programmers have a strict policy of handing all copies over to our clients. Then they have free choice over who to use and what to do. Some even ask for the program so they can tinker. Under the strict knowledge if the cock it up there is a small charge to re-install it.


V.

As getting a programmer out to rural France may be a problem, what are the alternatives for self programming with something simple? Also preferring all wiring going back to a single cabinet.