Network and Smart Home

With the remodel nearly completed, I thought I would provide an overview of the home’s network and the smart home systems I have constructed.

To an overview of the system:

I set up a network rack in the basement as the home base for everything in the house. This is where the coax from the cable company terminates and where I built everything else out from. As a general rule, every cable is ran as a homerun back to the network rack. This includes one coax drop to each room and possible TV location, 2-3 CAT6 runs to each room/desk/TV location, speaker wire for in-wall speakers in the dining room and ceiling speakers for the kitchen, CAT6 for power-over-ethernet (PoE) security cameras in multiple locations on the exterior of the house, and several ceiling CAT6 drops for WAP’s (wireless access points). All in all, we ran 1,000 feet of CAT6 and a couple hundred feet of coax.

I had already began to outfit our house prior to the remodel with Lutron Caseta light switches. These smart switches worked great as most of them don’t require a neutral wire (which is a good feature when upgrading an old house). The house has been completely rewired at this point, but I already had quite a few switches and the Lutron Caseta system happens to be bombproof when compared to all the other smart home devices…so I decided to continue down that rabbit hole. Every light switch in the house is either a Lutron Caseta dimmer or Lutron Caseta switch. For the 3-way and 4-way switches (and a few other places that needed an extra switch or scene controller), I installed Lutron Pico Remotes.

At the moment, we use Amazon’s Alexa for verbal commands (via our Sonos speakers, Echo Dots, ecobee thermostat, and Amazon Echo Show 5) and Apple HomeKit for electronic device control. With that said, with the programming and motion sensors and the occasional switch/pico scene controllers, we rarely need to open up any apps.

To the hardware specifics:

12U NavePoint Wall Mount Network Cabinet
Pyle PDU
24-Port Keystone Patch Panel
Cable Management Panel
10″ Deep, 1U Rack Shelf
Lots of patch cables in varying lengths
Cat6 Cable
RG6 Coaxial Cable
14AWG Speaker Wire
Motorola MB8600 6Gbps Modem
Router/Firewall: UniFi Dream Machine Pro with 8TB HD
Switch: UniFi Switch 24 PoE
Two UniFi 6 Long-Range Access Points
Several UniFi Protect G4-Bullet Cameras
UniFi G4 Doorbell
Ring Floodlight Cam
Lutron Caseta Smart Bridge
Philips Hue Smart Hub
Philips Hue Sensors
WeMo Bridge for Homekit
Sonos Amp for Kitchen Ceiling Speakers
Sonance Ceiling Speakers in the Kitchen
Sonos Connect: Amp for Dining Room Wall Speakers
Polk In-Wall Speakers for Dining Room
Delta Trinsic VoiceIQ Kitchen Faucet
Nest Protect: 2nd Gen Smoke + CO Alarms

Currently, Apple’s HomeKit and Amazon’s Alexa form the backbone of much our system. And while it works well, there is still more to be done to integrate everything more seamlessly. In the coming months, I plan to delve into the world of Raspberry Pi’s and explore Home Assistant. Certain devices and ecosystems don’t currently play well with each other and it will be nice to bring everything under one umbrella. If anybody has any experience or opinions, please do share as I would love all the help I can get coming up to speed. I’m looking forward to the continual iterations but feel pretty good about the current foundation we’ve built.

One thought on “Network and Smart Home”

Sharon @ Laurelhurstcraftsman says:

May 15, 2021 at 7:38 am

Impressive system. Congratulations for having the foresight to run the wiring during your remodel. We aspired to put in a home network, but we were so overwhelmed by it all the different upgrades that needed to happen to all the home systems that we, unfortunately, didn’t manage to get all the network wiring installed. We’ll have to rely on wireless tech when we get around to upgrading.