Wired home automation

#1

So I have rewired my house and as I work for a data and electrical installation company, I have managed to cable my house in a way to benefit wired automation. Problem is, I cannot find a wired system to use.

In more detail,

I have CAT6 pretty much everywhere for things for IO (sensors, motion sensors, cameras, screens etc.) basically anywhere that will be handy. Back to a data cab.

I have wired my lights so that they can be controlled from a large DIN rail frame/cabinet; every light switch comes back to the DIN rail frame, every light fitting comes back to the DIN rail frame; in affect it is a large junction box. I can make my connections there and was hoping to use DIN rail fitted controllers.

Old X10 units would be great in this way but X10 is pretty old hat. Problem is, most things are now wireless (Z-wave, WiFi, RF etc).

I dont want to fit out the DIN rail cabinet with wireless technology just for them to transmit a couple of inches! seems a wasteā€¦

People have mentioned DMX but, Iā€™m not sure about how well I can integrate it into Openhab2.

also Iā€™m a complete novice to Openhab but, think i will be ok thanks to places like this website and others. Iā€™'m yet to commit to any home automation technology as I dont know what is the right stepā€¦

Any help or discussion on this would be appreciatedā€¦

Antā€¦

#2

Theyā€™re not around yet, but something like the wESP32 might do what you like.

Iā€™m with you on the hardwiring. Wireless is great and all, and I love it as well, but Iā€™d take gigabit PoE over wifi any day.

There are also hats and injectors for the Rasperry Piā€™s.

#3

Alsoā€¦ I believe that Siemens has some OpenHab (probably from OpenHab1) or Home Assistant support for their ā€œsmart relaysā€.

Iā€™m working with IDECā€™s version of this, trying to reverse engineer it a bit. Nice kit, but expensive. My father in law does industrial controls engineering and tasked me with figuring out the ā€œnerdy partsā€ so that we could re-purpose them.

I believe both the IDEC and Siemens units are expandable, and kind of fit exactly your use case.

#4

Thatā€™s a pretty good idea. I never thought about openhab bindings for devices more prominent in the commercial market.

I have seen some units available for connecting to rpi or arduino. PCBs with rows of relays etc

#5

PS. Iā€™m googling wESP now :+1:t3:

#6

My understanding is that those Siemens modules are used by some power companies, especially in Europe (France). Let me know if you do/donā€™t get anywhere with the Smart Relays. FIL is convinced that these would be the best thing going, and I donā€™t feel too confident in my reverse-engineering skills lol.

There are some other options out there, more without PoE than with, but yeah everybody on the HA front is going wireless these days. :cry:

There are some ESP32 variants I know of off the top of my head with Ethernet, but boy are they pricey compared to the ESP8266. At that point a Pi probably does more for you, or at least the same but faster.

#7

First of all, Welcome to the forum @antmck33!

Iā€™ve been looking around for wired standards for smart homes a while now. What my conclusion is that KNX is a neat standard to use here. Itā€™s a industry standard and is currently popular in Europe and China. Not sure about the US market, but its probably available there too.

Whats great about it is that most of the components fit in a standard DIN rail. Modules available are plentiful and could be anything from a relay to temperature sensor. For instance there are; relays, dimmers, valve actuators, thermostats, switches, indicators, motion sensors and much more. Should be a decent solution since you have cables centralized to a DIN rail. Check out the following video for a introduction to KNX. If you are interested in how he sets it up, check out his other episodes.

How could you integrate KNX with OpenHAB you ask? There is already an available binding that gives this functionality. Because KNX is an open standard. All you need is a interface to the KNX bus. From the video he uses a KNX to IP adapter, which would work fine in this case. Since you probably will be using OpenHAB to control devices, you donā€™t really need the ā€˜biggerā€™ model. A simple interface will do the job just fine (the one without a display).

Sounds like a good solution so far, but there is one downside to it. The devices and components can be really expensive. Although you can get some second hand modules for cheap off Ebay. In most KNX installations the biggest cost is usually the central controller (like 2.000ā‚¬). But fortunately since you can use a open source controller like OpenHAB to interface with it, you can save a lot. Plus OpenHAB can be integrated with other standards like Z-Wave, so could have a lot of flexibility.

Hope this helped you :slight_smile:
If there is anything else you are wondering about, feel free to ask!