How to wire for a Smart home in the UK automated home UK featuring Loxone
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 มี.ค. 2024
- We are renovating and extending a 1970s bungalow in Dorset. We plan to make this a smart automated home using Loxone and Givenergy as well as other technologies. We want the home to be a great place to live as well as environmentally responsible.
In this video, we'll be delving into the intricacies of first fix and second fix wiring, focusing on integrating Loxone, and why we chose it over Control4, KNX, and Creston solutions. From whole house audio to automated blinds, lighting, and even energy-efficient systems like MVHR, solar, battery storage, and ASHP, we've hope we have it covered. Let's dive in and explore the exciting world of home automation wiring!
I would like to thank some of the channels that I have found useful in making my technology decisions including: @beeautomation @thamesvalleyautomation3217 @LoxoneINT @givenergy @DaikinUK
#HomeAutomation #Loxone #Control4 #KNX #Creston #SmartHome #UKWiring #FirstFix #SecondFix #WholeHouseAudio #AutomatedBlinds #AutomatedLighting #MVHR #Solar #BatteryStorage #ASHP #EnergyEfficiency #Givenergy #Daikin - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
Nice to see a UK build. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it
Brilliant update video, cant wait for more!
More to come soon
Looking great, Ian!
Thanks Adrian
Hi, looks really good what your doing; you certainly know your stuff. I watched a USA youtuber doing similar to you, he had a guy that installs everything below 50 volts. He did on very simple
thing that i thought was brilliant. He ran empty flexi conduits so that cable could be run in the future, he only installed 2 or 3 as he probably strategically knew what he was doing. I would run
them all over the place myself. I'm sure you have thought of it, if you haven't even done it.
I did debate conduit with my installer, I have used it in places and other locations cables are in stud walls so it would be possible to fish a new cable. One area that caused a lot of through was across our hallway. We have a vaulted ceiling and solid floor so no obvious route for cables. The batterys are in the garage and Loxone in the house so lost of cables have to go that route. We have istalled a lenght of 110mm soild pipe to run all of the power cables through and can just about get to it later if we need more. data cables have been clipped a distance away to avoid noise. Adding data later would be harder so i will add a few spare.
TH-cam thought I would like this video, and indeed I did 😀. I would love to do something like this from scratch. Thanks for the explanations. I imagine that you already considered this but ensure you have cooling or exhaust outlets for control cabinets or server racks to keep components cool.
Hi Brian. I am trying to avoid heavy consumption from server style machines if at all possible. My small data rack is in the garage with good ventilation but also very well insulated to avoid cold. All of the equipment in the Loxone cabinet is Loxone sourced and I asked the installer about heat generation. It is all pretty low power and passively cooled.
The power consumption for the Loxone cabinet is around 400W but the vast majority of that is LED tape where the heat generated will be a long way from the cabinet. The Miniserver is listed as just 3W. Interesting is that the Audio server consumption is a lot more at around 150W in theory with all rooms at full volume. I will monitor the temperature and can easily adjust the door I will fit to include space for ventilation.
Make provision for a Pi/Loxiberry setup. Communicating with Velux controllers, etc., is much easier via this, mainly using a broker and MQTT. Add wires for basic hardwired water sensors in all key locations if you have spare inputs. Also just run spare cables generally as you never know what you will do later :) The loxone software is the easy bit. Planning the cables and getting the hardware in takes the most thought.
Thanks, great input. We are still mid build. I wake up at night thinking of cables for have forgotten. Thankfully most of our home is single story so was can add cables from above. I have decided on another box of cat6 to run to various locations just for this reason. We need to lock down the Loxone panel in the next week but hope it will still have a few spare relays, inputs and dimmer channels spare.
@@JurassicJungle also the dmx module is one of the best. I then run a couple generic 32 channel controllers for various led tapes and spots. You can then if really want run 12v relays from it if did not want to splash on so many loxone relay modules. Anyway all the best
@@s31teg thanks, will check into that
Great to see you're using Loxone, they're very reliable and the system is very versatile.
One issue I've experienced is with temperature sensing in each room. The 'standard' is to use the light switches (I think you mentioned Touch Pure?).
However, I've found since light switches are usually at the entrance to a room, they aren't particularly accurate unless the room door is kept shut. For instance, our hallway is normally several degrees cooler and the door to this particular room is usually kept open. This means a) the temperature measured is lower than the temperature in the room and also, b) the heating in that room comes on way too soon, to try and heat the room up to the desire temperature at the scheduled time!
Thanks Rob, I have struggled a bit with this point. As we have an air source heat pump and underfloor heating some experts suggest we don't need anything like as complex as Loxone to control it. The logic is to leave all of the valves open and set flow temperatures low then just adjust zone valves and a weather compensation curve for best economy. I get that but when I look at a car engine they work the same as they did 100 years ago but the engine management is what has made them more efficient. I am hoping Loxone can monitor and report all of the temperatures but give a light touch to control allowing the heat pump to run low and slow. What I don't want is Loxone trying to do super detailed control opening and shutting UFH loops whcih make the ASHP cycle and be less efficient. We are well insulated so hope this will be possible.
The Unifi Cloud Gateway Ultra might be a good alternative to the UDM Pro if your internet connection isn't faster than a gigabit.
Thanks will check that out. we don't have fibre to the house so speed is limited. It doesn't look like UCG has video recording but I am not certain if I will use Ubiquity cameras yet.
What a great home you will have Are you going to have AC air to air or just heating? With your system
Used to install Loxone so will be nice to see yours up and running
Hi Derek, we have an air source heat pump linked to underfloor heating throughout. AC would have been nice but we are north facing so don’t get too much solar gain. Loxone will control all of the heating valves via relays rather than the Loxone valves which don’t seem too reliable.
wow, X10, now that takes me back. Not familiar with the Loxone brand, will check it out. You sound au fait with tech, curious why you didn't go with Home Assistant
HI , I think I will almost certianly end up with home assistant running linked to this unit. As far as I am aware Home Assistant does not provide the actual dimmers and relays required but it does have an extensive set of integrations. Loxone is based more on an industrial PLC platform so rock solid control of the basics. The describe the system as "Clopen" it is a closed so there for easy to work with platform but it is open as it allows integration with other systems. Unfortunatley the integration with HA is not the best. Loxone is not a cheap option, I am probably spending more on services than I have spent in the last 20 years on X10, Zwave and more but that was just a hobby, this is core to the building functionality and there is a lot of technology included. My resistance to Loxone is the risk of a them going out of business, my experience wtih X10 was very good at the start but it became unreliable, I think due to noise from so many switched mode power supplies in the home swamping the signal. I want to be able to pplay with Home assistant without the risk of breaking the basic home functionality.
@@JurassicJungle regarding the dimmers, I use Samotech 308 zigbee dimmer units, I can then use any push-momentary switch to turn them off/on and push-hold to dim up and down, pretty much the same as any standard touch based dimmer swithch. I can also use any dimmable LEDs, in essence, dumb switch, dumb light, smart dimmer unit, helps to keep the cost very low.
Relay wise, you can get Shelly units that work directly with Home Assistant, or Sonoff ones if you're up for a bit of Tasmota flashing (very simple).
That’s very similar to what I used in my last house. I used wave fibaro modules behind all light switches ( had to make many back boxes deeper). It worked pretty well and was reliable but the fibaro software was not great. Zigbee availability has come a long way since I did that and much cheaper than zwave. I have some Shelly sockets and will use some meters as Shelly integrates very easily with Loxone.
Nice video!
I need to require a large 60s bungalow (with room in roof) and have been agonising over how to do it.
This video has given some food for thought!
I had been planning to install dumb switches but wire them back to a central cabinet so I could use them in future as a volt free switch for a smart system. The bit that’s been bothering me is what to do if I want a switch like loxone in future.
May I ask why you went with KNX over their Tree cable? Was it just cost?
Hi, If you use KNX cable or even possibly Cat6 that could work. You can just use a dumb switch with Loxone into a digital input, I plan to do that in my garage with momentary switches to control lights and the automatic door. The Loxone switches offer much more functionality as they have temperature and humidity sesnors and 5 touch points so can control blinds and audio as well. That comes at quite a price as the glass switches are around £200 each so a significant part of the project. If you wire that way you could use just about any automation system in the future but it will require you to do something now with relays for volt free switching. I think I would take a look at Shelly modules or Fibaro. Some of these have volt free inputs and switched or dimmed outputs. They will just function even if you don't use teh smart functions. I think the only downside with Shelly is they use WiFi so you can end up with a lot of devices on the WiFi network. Automated home took a look at this a few years back automatedhome.co.uk/new-products/converting-to-a-diy-shelly-smart-home-part-1.html
Hello could you please share how were you able to integrate the Somfy tahoma?
Hi, we are yet to set this up. My installer is confident it can be done, I will post a video once it is working via the api. If that fails I also have a 1home server which would probably allow matter protocol to link Tahoma to Loxone.
smart man! men go loxone and chumps go control4 and crestron! dont fall victim to RMR to ur c4 and crestron dealer, those systems line the dealers products and fuckin suck yours dry.
Thanks for the feedback. I did look at both, Creston felt if was a much more commercially focused product (that said that also seems to be a big focus for Loxone more recently). I didn’t like control 4 much at all. Loxone does seem to lack in the av space and I am not fully convinced by the audio server it seems to have better integration options overall. I have installed allowing an option to switch back to Sonos later but that would mean sacrificing some nice Loxone functionality.