Hello all, long time lurker, first post. I’m hoping to draw on the incredible experience here, and have some fun with this. If you could start all over with your automation system, what would you do? What would you do differently? What wouldn’t you change at all? My wife and I are getting ready for a major renovation, and addition that will more than double the current size of our home. We’ve been running a Vera 3 on UI5 with a couple of IP Foscams and a few outlets. Really nothing too complicated, just video monitoring and basic timers on the lights. I feel like we have the chance to go bigger and better and add more functionality with the addition. I’m looking for feedback, musts, don’ts, dos, etc. Thoughts?
For me, when I buy a new house, I will design my house to be home automation ready :). I will run all the wires for my cameras, blinds, power outlets, lights, speakers, bathroom fan.
I would have extra cat6 runs. POE is the best for the IP cameras and the more that I can hardwire the better
The things I think I’m pretty set on for security are:
- Hard Wired IP Cameras, indoor and outdoor, all lines will be PPOE and run back to a central control point in the basement.
- PIR Occupancy Sensors in main areas of home, don’t know if there is a combination sensor that is better or just stick with the basics. Ceilings will be vaulted and about 14 feet high at the peak so range is a concern for which sensor to choose.
- Z-Wave or other Lockset, thinking probable just the deadbolts in the two exterior doors and the door into the garage.
- Audible/Strobe notification of some kind.
- Door and window sensors, big question here is wired or wireless? Because we are building wired is an option and an easy one, but is it that much better than a wireless option?
For Automation:
- Z-Wave Switch Assemblies, will probably stick with the GE, although I’ve had mixed results on them “disappearing” from the system. Is there a better source?
- Will probably tie the lights to the motion sensors, would love to find some really small sensors that are compatible with the system for areas like the stairs and porches.
- Would like to do some sound or AV in parts of the house, looked at sonos but as I said, I’m really green to all of this and still doing my homework. Will likely wire for speakers in a few rooms and home run them back to the same central spot in the basement.
- Would love to tie some voice control to this option. Has anyone tried to hack the ECHO to use remote microphones?
- Possibly controlled blinds. House has a ton of windows and it would be nice to be able to close it up automatically.
Beyond that there are some things I’d like to do with outdoor outlets, landscape lighting, gate control, etc. But they are going to be down the road additions I believe.
Thanks for the good feedback so far!
This question has been asked a lot in the past, though it may have been a year since last I saw one. But, the answer has not changed at all. When starting with a new house/remodel, wire for everything and then, later, user wireless to fill the gaps that you will inevitably miss.
Wired is better than wireless! Add ~$5,000 to your budget and wire for everything imaginable, even if you don’t initially plan to implement that feature.
Build some tech closets into your design. A/V, networking, automation, electrical. Consider cooling these locations. A/V gear and media servers don’t take kindly to being stuck in a hot garage and simply putting them in an interior closet, not capable of removing a LOT of heat is not much better. Don’t forget power! You’ll want a dedicated circuit(s). Also, don’t forget to plan for noise. You won’t want to listen to server fans humming like angry bees in the middle of your living space or against a bedroom wall. Relocate or insulate as needed.
Wire for alarms and interior motion/temp sensors.
Wire for door sensors. Wire for electrical locks/strikes. Don’t overlook the garage. Door access keypads?
Wire for curtains/blinds/shades.
Wire for cameras. - Think IP cameras inside and out.
Wire for speakers. - Surround sound, audio in different rooms. perhaps microphones.
Wire for video. - HDMI home runs and coax.
Wire for ethernet. - Every single room. (WiFi access points, computers, phones, A/V gear, future IoT devices.)
Wire for lighting. - Would a low voltage central lighting controller suite your needs? Ever? Run some Cat5 or similar to the light switches.
Wire for under-eve or landscape lighting.
Backup power/generator?
…
Have a look at @SirMeilli’s awesome home theater closet project. You might get some ideas. That traitor 
guy did some cool stuff with lots of pictures.
Nice house, by the way.
So if wired is better, what’s the “best” integration between wired door/window sensors and a Vera Unit? Are there any systems that are more plug and play for a less technically inclined user?
Agree with z-waver–I’ll take wired every day. Be sure to think about places you might want door sensors inside for automation–bathroom/closet doors, etc… Also motion sensors.
As others have said, vera isn’t designed to be an alarm system, so I would go with sensors that integrate into an alarm you can bring into vera. We had an existing vista 20p and the integration was pretty straight forward, though it did require a visit from alarm company (and a flexible tech guy).
In general, I would suggest going with ‘gold standards’ that integrate into vera. IMO, this ends up being more reliable and gives you more flexibility later on if you want to upgrade/move to a different system. Also more likely these systems will continue to be supported. So we’ve gone with lutron for lighting and shade control and have Sonos and legacy russound system for audio. Nest for thermostat, though in retrospect, I would choose a different system.
Think about gate and doorbell control now and be sure you have run Ethernet and power to gate. We have an old AI phone installation that’s fine, but is costly to upgrade, for what you get, and doesn’t integrate well into vera. So far, I have seen any great products here that do integrate. We’re using the MyQ system for gate and garage door control and will just integrate a sensor into our existing doorbell for now. We have the dakota alert to let is know someone has come through the driveway.
The other thing I’d love to have is room based entry sensors at hip height or so–we have pets and the occupancy sensors are regularly triggered by the dogs. Also on my wish list would be having power run to our outdoor gates for the yard–there isn’t a good zwave commercial gate lock yet, but I imagine its just a matter of time. Either way having door sensors on the gates would be nice.
Other thoughts–water/flood sensors in bath, laundry and water heater areas and switches that allow you to shut off water to house and irrigation (ideally seperately). If you’re in a drought area, water usage monitor. Power monitors for things like dryer.
If you are thinking gas fireplaces, be sure to have a wall switch. We’ve put a lutron switch controlling one of our fireplaces and it’s great for integrating into scenes. Wish our firepit and grill had the same functionality!
Yeah, I prefer wired so much that I have torn out drywall and suffered 130 degree heat in the attic to do it. I don’t know how that raccoon (codenamed the Hamburgler) was surviving up there but he has since been evicted.
I even saw something where mounting locks on the jamb side of a door provides a path for wiring battery powered locks. If a manufacturer made a z-wave lock that behaves like a powered z-wave device and not a beam me and wake me up device, I’d be busting out some door jambs or having the cores of my doors drilled to run the wire from the hinge side. Perhaps z-wave+ will help some of the battery devices but I haven’t been impressed by anything battery powered thus far.
Was looking at EcoBee for a thermostat, I believe they can be integrated. I’m not opposed to a stand alone alarm system but don’t want or need the monitoring. Absolutely agree with sticking with a gold standard for systems, any advice on what specific wired systems are already supported and likely to continue to be? If I can ask why Lutron over GE?
[quote=“Stoltenberg, post:6, topic:188955”]Are there any systems that are more plug and play for a less technically inclined user?[/quote]Just by being on this board, you’re already too far into the “quicksand” that is home automation(HA). There’s no escape now. 
But make no mistake, unless you buy a professionally installed and maintained system like Crestron, you’re going to need to become more technically inclined and familiar with these types of systems. It’s not an insurmountable learning curve, but there is a learning curve.
Speaking of Crestron and thinking of wired DIY systems, you may want to look into Elk. They make wired systems that offer somewhat similar levels of HA as Vera. They can also be integrated with Vera if you want to go that route in the future.
DSC alarm equipment is the go-to alarm recommendation, on this forum, that easily integrates with Vera. No monitoring required, if you don’t want it. But many companies will monitor it for you, if you wish.
@tb001 - I forgot to mention interior door sensors(all doors). Thanks for mentioning that. Though, I’m personally not yet sold on the value of flood sensor/control unless it’s for a basement/sump. And I’ve had a kitchen destroyed by a leaking dishwasher. Different strokes. But, if the wires are there, one could certainly add it if one wished.
@rstrouse - There’s no Z-Wave lock like you describe. But, there are electric door strikes that you could activate via Z-Wave or other mechanism, if you’ve got a wired door jamb.
In retrospect, I would have gone with ecobee. We have two hvacs and may end up putting the nest in the living room area and putting an ecobee in the bedrooms. I like that you can get an integrated sensor that you can place in other rooms to modulate temperature based on occupancy. I’ve used pleg temperature sensor to do this with the nest, but the ‘smart’ thermostat still tries to turn on/off at times when it’s annoying.
For lutron, I just think they make a superior product and have a better reputation, but YMMV. If you do GE, be sure you have instant status on the switches–this is critical for automation. Another advantage of lutron is that you can program scenes that execute in lutron and control different switches at once. Possible in vera, but clunkier in execution as you start to get to a lot of switches at once. The lutron scenes are triggerable by vera, so still use this for the automatic aspect.
We have an alarm service, but only because we’re still on contract. For us, vera is good enough and I’m more worried about triggering a false alarm than absolute fail proof monitoring. Still, I would go with one of the standard home alarms-check the board to see which ones integrate well. The wired sensors are MUCH cheaper than vera compatible z wave sensors.
Eta, what z-waver said re alarms–we cross posted.
[quote=“Z-Waver, post:10, topic:188955”][quote=“Stoltenberg, post:6, topic:188955”]Are there any systems that are more plug and play for a less technically inclined user?[/quote]Just by being on this board, you’re already too far into the “quicksand” that is home automation(HA). There’s no escape now.
But make no mistake, unless you buy a professionally installed and maintained system like Crestron, you’re going to need to become more technically inclined and familiar with these types of systems. It’s not an insurmountable learning curve, but there is a learning curve.[/quote]
I’m not afraid of learning something new, but I’m also not finding a lot of resources that “teach” the ropes of this. I guess that’s why I came here. I’m not totally inept from a technical aspect, but my background is more in building and lighting and all the “control” systems I’m used to run widely accepted and well documented protocols with universal software applications and mixed plug and play ability. I’ve built my own controllers, programmed lighting controllers, and I’ve built several houses. I’m struggling with unfamiliar terminology and a lack of accessible resources I guess. I’ve done a few projects on a beagle bone and Pi, but I’m seriously lacking in programming skills. Getting better all the time.
Was looking at this DSC as a basic starter kit. I’ve installed DSC Systems in the last two houses we built and had pretty good luck with them. HSS Has great customer service and helped with the hicups getting everything up and running.
Zach
Ha! You are way, way ahead of me!! Though I’m fairly resourceful and can usually figure things out, I had never even heard of pi before I went down the vera rabbit hole. If you can learn pleg, there’s not much need to learn to program. I’ve been able to put together lua commands when needed just by modifying examples found here.
+1 on Ecobee - much better than the obvious alternative.
I would also offer my general rule of thumb: Make sure everything will work fine in “manual mode”, so that if all the automation and/or network fails, you can still lock doors, switch lights and generally inhabit your home.
pnmb brings up a good point about making sure things will function in a manual mode. This is one of the reasons I like our lutron system–ideally we use it through vera, but when vera was screwed up and wouldn’t respond for days, everything still worked.
So what exactly is the interface between the DSC and the Vera? How does the Vera receive input from the security system if all of the sensors are wired?
I’ve seen PLEG in several locations, is there an explanation of it anywhere? Not finding much documentation on it.
With the addition of an Envisalink Internet Alert Module for DSC & Honeywell alarm panels, Vera can communicate with the DSC system via TCP/IP. There is also a Vera DSC Alarm Panel Plugin that facilitates this integration. The DSC alarm’s sensors then show up in Vera for use in scenes etc.
PLEG(Program Logic Event Generator) is a Vera plugin that extends Vera’s programmability. It allows the user to program/configure scene type actions based on highly complex conditional logic.
The most rudimentary example is that Vera’s stock scene “configurator” can only do OR conditions. IF Door OR Window. IF Motion OR Schedule. The scene “configurator” cannot do IF Motion AND Schedule. For that you must write Lua/LUUP code. PLEG allows this type of condition(and so very much more) without having to write Lua/LUUP code.
Another example of PLEG’s unique capabilities is a progression of events. For example If PIN Code, THEN Door, THEN Motion2, Turn on HallLight; else ALARM.
To carry on with pleg, I use it to manage my hvac across multiple floors. I get 10 degree variations between up and downstairs which means the dining room is freezing or the bedrooms roast. An upstairs temp sensor lets me keep upstairs cool at night and downstairs from freezing without excessively heating or cooling. My house is more comfortable AND my utility bills went down slightly.
I also have a pleg routine that will relock the front door after it has been shut for more than 3 minutes, send me text messages if my locks or smoke alarms stop responding to hub for more than 2 polling cycles, or if any two 110v devices go offline.
I would also recommend having a security system installed and using it for your door/window/fire/flood monitoring. Security systems have fantastic uptime. Home automation systems…maybe, maybe not. Take advantage of decades of development and commodity hardware. Plus, a security system can easily install a cellular backup but it’s a PITA to manage with HA-based security. These days a prosumer security system like dsc can be standalone or monitored for $10/month. Depending on your home owners insurance discount, that might essentially be free.
Plus, hubs like vera are computer-y and might have similar upgrade cycles. they are to new to say. Security systems can be on the market for decades with similar life spans.
It seems as I’m in agreement with everyone… wires to everything I’m lucky enough to have wired recessed window sensors and wired door sensors, but I would like wiring to blinds, and at least power under the outdoor soffit for cameras.
For an alternate to DSC you might want to check out elk panels. I use an elk m1 gold and so do others on these forums. It integrates the same as the DSC (TCP/IP + plugin), but has much much more in the way of features. It costs a bit more, but the extras can be worth it. If you compare all the features and think there’s no way you’ll use them, then definitely save the $$$ and go with DSC, but just throwing out a vote and a recommendation for elk (I’m not affiliated).