Home automation
Discussion
Yipper said:
Know someone who's just got a wireless chip implanted in their hand and uses it to open and close all the doors to their home and office.
They commute by train and pretty much now have a keyless life.
It looks cool and they love not having to worry about losing keys ever again.
And then you woke up.They commute by train and pretty much now have a keyless life.
It looks cool and they love not having to worry about losing keys ever again.
Greg66 said:
Have you got an Apple TV
Don't have Apple TV sorry.https://www.protectamerica.com/home-security-blog/...
Might be worth asking on or searching the Harmony forums...
https://community.logitech.com/s/topic/0TO31000000...
Cat6a is more than good enough for atleast the next 5 years. Fibre is slowing coming into play but is not yet cost effective in the home yet. There is not a great choice of Fibre switching however there is new Cat6a switching on the market.
Anyone that says you need Fibre is trying to make money or doesn’t really know what they are doing. Maybe ok if it’s run to a few points but I don’t see the reason at the moment.
Anyone that says you need Fibre is trying to make money or doesn’t really know what they are doing. Maybe ok if it’s run to a few points but I don’t see the reason at the moment.
Yipper said:
Know someone who's just got a wireless chip implanted in their hand and uses it to open and close all the doors to their home and office.
They commute by train and pretty much now have a keyless life.
It looks cool and they love not having to worry about losing keys ever again.
https://dangerousthings.com/shop/xnti/They commute by train and pretty much now have a keyless life.
It looks cool and they love not having to worry about losing keys ever again.
$99, install at your own risk!
Lols said:
Im not running conduits so once the cables are in they need to last. - that’s what makes me so je Void about all this stuff! Don’t want to make the wrong decision and find in 5 years it’s out of date!
I’m being safe by saying 5 years. It could well be nearer 10-15. It’s mainly cost. Yes it’s better but is about 4x the price once you consider the hardware required as well. Offices are still using Cat cables and often there is not the price constraints. If I were building my own house... Cat6a everywhere. Possible Fibre to each TV point and between racks.
Lols said:
Blue 62 - sounds like your project is similar to ours. Out of interest why do you need Fibre to the TVs? Will Cat cable not always be enough?
Sorry if I've not made it clear, all that has been suggested is that it may be worth running fibre optic to the four points where we will have cinema and TV's, the cable will not be live and it's just a hedge against what comes in the future (apparently 8k is on the way and who knows what thereafter) and for the cost of the cable it's been suggested that it's worth doing while we are building the house. The general advice is to run Cat 6 everywhere and to have points in bedrooms and elsewhere to give flexibility. When I have more detail I will be happy to share it and if you want to PM me you are most welcome. Thanks Blue and Chasing - will maybe put Fibre into the TVs. We ran HDMI between TVs in this house so that we could keep the 2 sky boxes in one place by the internet connection and magic eye to the 2nd TV but it has difficulties with the run, especially when SKy reduced the strength of the signal.
chasingracecars said:
Cat6a is more than good enough for atleast the next 5 years. Fibre is slowing coming into play but is not yet cost effective in the home yet. There is not a great choice of Fibre switching however there is new Cat6a switching on the market.
Anyone that says you need Fibre is trying to make money or doesn’t really know what they are doing. Maybe ok if it’s run to a few points but I don’t see the reason at the moment.
There will never be an actual need for fibre internal to home network. Even cat6 in a house is excessive unless we're talking about a castle with thick stone walls - that said at build stage I would do it..... Sure someone with more money than sense will come along and tell me i'm wrong tho. Just think, sky multiroom has gone to wifi, what internal feed is ever going to need over the 1000mbs that even cat 5/current wifi supports and if it does why won't wifi tech keep up.Anyone that says you need Fibre is trying to make money or doesn’t really know what they are doing. Maybe ok if it’s run to a few points but I don’t see the reason at the moment.
Edited by Black_S3 on Sunday 28th January 03:23
Blue62, i share your pain. Home has a couple of km of cat 5 (6 was not around then), speaker cables to every room from a central hub and cctv, all works fine, but none of it is joined up... as in no unified app or control. Seem to be lost in the divide between code writing geekery and snake oil bespoke system.
Had hoped that 10 years would have made a difference, but not really. Still a lack of standardisation, our roof lights have now added zwave control to the mix. As has a different system for the heating, to the mvhr. So lots of cat6 have gone into the new one. All the trades looked at the snake of purple cable everywhere and to a man said, wasting your your time mate, it’s all Wi-Fi now.
Interesting that owing to the level of insulation and use of reflective multi-foil membrane I seem to have built something approaching a faraday cell. Full strength 4g mobile signal outside, hardly able to get a signal inside. Wi-Fi also blocked from outside and does not spread between rooms very well inside either, rather glad about all that purple cable. Though will need to resolve mobile signal.
Oh and like the look of your steel works!
Had hoped that 10 years would have made a difference, but not really. Still a lack of standardisation, our roof lights have now added zwave control to the mix. As has a different system for the heating, to the mvhr. So lots of cat6 have gone into the new one. All the trades looked at the snake of purple cable everywhere and to a man said, wasting your your time mate, it’s all Wi-Fi now.
Interesting that owing to the level of insulation and use of reflective multi-foil membrane I seem to have built something approaching a faraday cell. Full strength 4g mobile signal outside, hardly able to get a signal inside. Wi-Fi also blocked from outside and does not spread between rooms very well inside either, rather glad about all that purple cable. Though will need to resolve mobile signal.
Oh and like the look of your steel works!
Blue62 if you really are just going to control only lighting / blinds & the gate release you can do all that via Lutron on its own, has got to be cheaper than going control 4 & is well supported, been around forever & proved very reliable thus far too.
I also use Lutron sensors in various rooms to control my recirculating hot water as having lived in our old house where it was a 2 minute wait for hot water to arrive at the taps I wasn’t having that in the new house, max wait is now 7 seconds for piping hot anywhere in the house, bliss.
I also use Lutron sensors in various rooms to control my recirculating hot water as having lived in our old house where it was a 2 minute wait for hot water to arrive at the taps I wasn’t having that in the new house, max wait is now 7 seconds for piping hot anywhere in the house, bliss.
jimbouk said:
Blue62, i share your pain. Home has a couple of km of cat 5 (6 was not around then), speaker cables to every room from a central hub and cctv, all works fine, but none of it is joined up... as in no unified app or control. Seem to be lost in the divide between code writing geekery and snake oil bespoke system.
Had hoped that 10 years would have made a difference, but not really. Still a lack of standardisation, our roof lights have now added zwave control to the mix. As has a different system for the heating, to the mvhr. So lots of cat6 have gone into the new one. All the trades looked at the snake of purple cable everywhere and to a man said, wasting your your time mate, it’s all Wi-Fi now.
Interesting that owing to the level of insulation and use of reflective multi-foil membrane I seem to have built something approaching a faraday cell. Full strength 4g mobile signal outside, hardly able to get a signal inside. Wi-Fi also blocked from outside and does not spread between rooms very well inside either, rather glad about all that purple cable. Though will need to resolve mobile signal.
Oh and like the look of your steel works!
Ha! Thanks Jim, lost a little time this month with all the rain and a block wall blew over last week! If I really have stumbled across a decent AV/HA company I will happily pass on their details if you want them, I know a guy they did an install for last year who I approached in the pub, all positive but the proof of the pudding and all that.
Had hoped that 10 years would have made a difference, but not really. Still a lack of standardisation, our roof lights have now added zwave control to the mix. As has a different system for the heating, to the mvhr. So lots of cat6 have gone into the new one. All the trades looked at the snake of purple cable everywhere and to a man said, wasting your your time mate, it’s all Wi-Fi now.
Interesting that owing to the level of insulation and use of reflective multi-foil membrane I seem to have built something approaching a faraday cell. Full strength 4g mobile signal outside, hardly able to get a signal inside. Wi-Fi also blocked from outside and does not spread between rooms very well inside either, rather glad about all that purple cable. Though will need to resolve mobile signal.
Oh and like the look of your steel works!
Ha! Thanks Jim, lost a little time this month with all the rain and a block wall blew over last week! If I really have stumbled across a decent AV/HA company I will happily pass on their details if you want them, I know a guy they did an install for last year who I approached in the pub, all positive but the proof of the pudding and all that.
dmsims said:
I agree, Fibre in terms of bandwith is not going to be of any use in your lifetime
4K from Netflix uses a fraction of good old 100Mb ethernet
Exactly! There is no need for Fibre in any situation I can think of (expect distance runs).4K from Netflix uses a fraction of good old 100Mb ethernet
The only reason I would run Fibre to main locations is because 5 years ago Cat5 was more then good enough. Now you really need shielded Cat6 cable as more people are adopting 4k and 8k is knocking on our door. I can see applications where the screen could be split and with a Fibre connection to the screen it could show multiple feeds, ie. Live TV and PIP CCTV of the drive or front door that appears on motion detection. This can currently be done at the rack end but I can see the logic of Fibre in the future.
So, once again people are getting confused between the use of data cables for traditional data and the use of data cables as a really useful pipe for other things.
I agree (and have been saying for at least 5 years at HB&R Shows) that Cat5 cabling is perfectly capable of carrying Gigabit Speed Data around the house and while the external pipe feeding the house is still woeful for the vast majority of the UK (and yes 80Mbps is woeful compaired to some Virgin connections and other places in the world) there really isnt the need for anything else. Just plan it carefully and ensure truly mobile stuff stays on Wifi and fixed location stuff is wired.
However!
For us 'Home Tech Pros/System Integrators/Custom Installers' or whatever we get called, the Cat cable is so much more useful as a connection for other things. We use it for, Data, Wifi, HD Video (not streaming), UHD Video (not streaming), IR, RS232, RS485 Control Commands, Lighting Control, Heating Control, CCTV, Door Entry, Gate Control etc, etc, etc.
For video and some other aplications the speeds and capacity needed is certainly bumping around the limits of a CAT5e cable, which is why we use CAT6. However for long distance runs, uncompressed 4:4:4 4K Video and the forecast 8K capabilities Fibre is the only real option for future proofing especially if you are not going to have the chance to recable in the future. Ture, hardware will evolve, tech will get better, we will be able to stretch capacity and quality, but it will still suffer because of compression techniques and physical bandwidth limitations.
So those with a CAT6 network need not worry, tech will be here but if I were installing now I would put dark fibre in as a precaution, it really is not expensive now at all and does not need to be terminated until you need it.
Remember we dont built houses that get extensively remodelled like other countries and we certainly dont build many of them from timber frames which are easier to recable.
The other question and other side of the coin is, do we need it. Well consider this, I heard a statistic some 15 years ago that amazed me and I have just check some stats to be able to update it.
Almost 55% of the homes we live in today, exisited 50 years ago!
However, more scary!
Over 87% of the homes we live in today are at least 20 years old (23million in 1997, 27million in 2017)
Think how far technology has moved on in that time, shouldnt we do something to provide for the future of our housing stock?
(sorry I am rambling)
V.
I agree (and have been saying for at least 5 years at HB&R Shows) that Cat5 cabling is perfectly capable of carrying Gigabit Speed Data around the house and while the external pipe feeding the house is still woeful for the vast majority of the UK (and yes 80Mbps is woeful compaired to some Virgin connections and other places in the world) there really isnt the need for anything else. Just plan it carefully and ensure truly mobile stuff stays on Wifi and fixed location stuff is wired.
However!
For us 'Home Tech Pros/System Integrators/Custom Installers' or whatever we get called, the Cat cable is so much more useful as a connection for other things. We use it for, Data, Wifi, HD Video (not streaming), UHD Video (not streaming), IR, RS232, RS485 Control Commands, Lighting Control, Heating Control, CCTV, Door Entry, Gate Control etc, etc, etc.
For video and some other aplications the speeds and capacity needed is certainly bumping around the limits of a CAT5e cable, which is why we use CAT6. However for long distance runs, uncompressed 4:4:4 4K Video and the forecast 8K capabilities Fibre is the only real option for future proofing especially if you are not going to have the chance to recable in the future. Ture, hardware will evolve, tech will get better, we will be able to stretch capacity and quality, but it will still suffer because of compression techniques and physical bandwidth limitations.
So those with a CAT6 network need not worry, tech will be here but if I were installing now I would put dark fibre in as a precaution, it really is not expensive now at all and does not need to be terminated until you need it.
Remember we dont built houses that get extensively remodelled like other countries and we certainly dont build many of them from timber frames which are easier to recable.
The other question and other side of the coin is, do we need it. Well consider this, I heard a statistic some 15 years ago that amazed me and I have just check some stats to be able to update it.
Almost 55% of the homes we live in today, exisited 50 years ago!
However, more scary!
Over 87% of the homes we live in today are at least 20 years old (23million in 1997, 27million in 2017)
Think how far technology has moved on in that time, shouldnt we do something to provide for the future of our housing stock?
(sorry I am rambling)
V.
Edited by VEX on Sunday 28th January 20:23
Edited by VEX on Sunday 28th January 20:24
dmsims said:
What's your solution for the physical switches ?
We have the concept of a scene switch which is an extra push switch in each key location. This will be on one side of the Fibaro module in each location and accepts a 1-2-3 click and hold for off. This is how we’ll manage the basic scene access. Everything else is regular mk logics Edited by dmsims on Sunday 28th January 20:21
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