Smart home big renovations raccomandations

Trikyzerg · May 9

Budget (including currency): I don't have a real budget, I want to spend as little as possible as long as the requirements are met.

Country: Italy

Games, programs, or workloads that it will be used for: It's complicated

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc):

Hi guys, recently I watched this video from LTT (Smart House section, 6:14), and this winter I'll start renovating my future apartment.

As in the video, I want to create a server rack-mounted system that manages all smart devices in the house, in an insulated small room (of course, cooled by air conditioning). Consider that the house will be solar-powered, and I want a system capable of managing several appliances, deciding when to start them (e.g., dishwasher start working only if the battery is at more than 40% charge), dimming lights depending on the time of the day, managing AC, and much more. I have only three requirements:

No subscription-based devices
No devices that rely on the manufacturer's cloud or services (even for free), to ensure that if the company goes bust, my devices still keep working with all features.
Support 2.5 Gbit internet connection (the house will receive a 2.5 Gbit fiber optic internet connection)

I'm not sure which component I need (switches and access point are enough?), do you have any suggestions for which company to buy from?

OhioYJ · May 10

I think your problem and lack of response will be because many people just choose wireless setups, as it's much simpler. Most of my home is "smart" and has been for many years, and been through a few different systems over that time period.

I do have a rack for my network equipment, but my smart home hub is not on that rack. It's not the idea placement in the house for it (since it's wireless). It's a small box anyways, that doesn't make any noise, so no problem for it to elsewhere. While my network and many of my devices support 10G, none the smart home hubs have yet. In fact the last two I've used have been 10/100.

The one that I know of (in my limited scope) that likely would fit your requirements best would be home assistant. Since this you can install on your own hardware. This would make it easier to install in a rack, and on something that has the 2.5G Ethernet. However depending on the placement, you may want to look into a wired setup. This will increase the complexity, but there is some information out there on creating wired setups with home assistant.

As for brands, I can only tell you what I've used, it may not help you on your side of the ocean. At this point I'm almost entirely ZWave, and almost entirely a Zooz. Zooz is well supported between the various smart home systems, their own tech support is great, and they are priced well (not the cheapest, but not expensive either). Aeotec is another I've used in the past, most of these sensors I'm now using at my mom's house (these tend to be a little more $$). Whatever you buy, research the kind of support they have in various systems. You don't want to buy $1000 worth of sensors just to find out you are locked into one system, because they won't work on another (been there once).

Maybe some would think I didn't integrate things enough, but I'll also mention, my "smart" home system, my cameras, my firewall, everything is a separate system, and it works just fine for me. It also has made it easier to just swap out any one piece of the puzzle over the years.