How To Build a Modern Smart Home

By the 1930s, electricity had become more common in urban homes, and by the 1940s, flipping a switch was becoming an everyday expectation in new construction.

The internet was invented decades ago, but it did not become common in homes until the mid-1990s. With the rapid growth of connected technology over the last several decades, it is no surprise that today’s homeowners increasingly expect their homes to include strong network and technology infrastructure from the start. While some builders may hesitate to add another trade or another layer of complexity that could affect budget or timelines, consumer demand is changing expectations. More builders are now incorporating technology infrastructure into their projects because it is becoming as important to modern living as plumbing and electrical systems.

You have a plumber. You have an electrician. Now you also need a technology integrator.

Technology designers and integrators like Level Up Automation are trained to design, install, and coordinate the systems that make your home’s technology work together reliably. A qualified integrator can:

• Design your systems to work together in one app instead of several
• Review architectural plans and make recommendations early in the process
• Help protect your privacy by designing systems around your preferences for data storage and access
• Coordinate with builders, electricians, and other trades to plan wiring for networking, security, sound systems, smart lighting, and more
• Program scenes and controls that make the system easy for everyone in the home to use

One of the most important parts of a modern home is its technology infrastructure. By incorporating a few best practices during the building process, you can create a home that is easier to use today and better prepared for the future.

A few specific improvements I’d make beyond the rewrite:

• Change “The most important emerging infrastructure of your new home is technology infrastructure” to something less absolute. It sounded a little overstated.
• Change “future proof your home” to “better prepare your home for the future” if you want it to sound more polished.
• Keep the “You have a plumber. You have an electrician. Now you also need a technology integrator.” sequence — that’s strong.

1. CAT6 network cable is the minimum standard for data communications. What is CAT5 or 6? CAT is a short name for "category network cable", it is low voltage network cable used for data communications and increasingly, to provide power without high voltage or line voltage needed.

If you remember before your laptop connected to the internet wirelessly it is the cable you plugged in to hook up to the network. Each generation brings more speed and sophistication abilities to the cable - the number represents the edition (CAT2, CAT3, CAT4 and so on) Cat6, has significantly higher data speeds than cat5. Despite this, we still see CAT5 being run for new home builds. 

Using CAT5 will impact the speed of the communication and network devices you have in your new home. Make sure your home runs on nothing lower than CAT6 networking cable. CAT7 does exist as does Fiber (fiberoptics) - both are used currently when needed and are a great way to invest in future proofing your home communications. 

2. Plan for your wireless network, sound systems, lighting and security. 

The control capabilities and speed of these systems are critical for the modern home, we recommend:

• Hardwire all your TV locations for streaming like Netflix, Hulu, and other sources. 
• Hardwire for all your planned and future planned security camera locations in the front, back and side of your house - modern cameras are powered and communicate through CAT6.
• Hardwire your video doorbell - your front door is oftem on of the most important places to be able to see and communicate wirelessly. Packages, people and more.
• Hardwire your home office locations so laptop and desktop computer locations can have maximum speeds for those Zoom calls. 
• Hardwire to your security panel or central home control system to provide power and connectivity
• Hardwire "wireless access" points in key zones throughout your new home where you will want to provide wireless access to ipads, phones or other mobile devices. 
• Creating this infrastructure and "pre-wire" before your walls are closed up provides feature accessibility down the road and is also signficantly less expensive for you. The installation labor to wire after your home is built is approxiamately 35-40% more expensive as access to conceal wires in existing structure is labor intensive. Moreover, with the new energy efficiany installation being used it is often times impossible to wire for anything inside walls. This can be very limiting. 

3.) Plan for speaker wire and pre wire construction speaker rings in main zones for easy add on of audio zones down the road.

Modern homes have whole home control systems to distribute audio and content from sources like Spotify, Sonos or other platforms for music, podcast or news enjoyment throughout the home. 

Think about where you want to listen to music and entertainment content like podcasts or news. Architectural speakers installed flush with your ceiling, save on counter space or can be prewired to be added a future date post construction. These speakers provide high quality sound while delivering a built in, clean aesthetic. This keeps sound system off the ground or countertops, providing a clean look.

We commonly design homes to be prewired for:

• Kitchens
• Living rooms 
• Main Bathrooms
• Backyards (outdoor audio, video and extending your wireless network outside)

Some secondary locations

• Home offices 
• Garages, Basements or Bonus Rooms

Additionaly, with the popularity of home streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and more, Many people are building home theaters to bring professional level audio and video into their homes. Will you have a dedicated room for home theater or will you use a family room as your main entertainment zone?

Prewire for preferred television location, ensure cat 6 and power is present. Possibly also HDMI.

Preferred wiring is to have all data cabling run to a media closet or a basement if you have one. 

Some common misses we see:

• Running low voltage network alongside high voltage wiring that delivers traditional power to outlets and appliances - this creates electrical interference with network signals.
• Not wiring while walls are down to future proof your new home. It is inexpensive to hard wire devices later even if you do not want them at the onset.
• Plan to put your “stuff” somewhere. No one likes a big pile of cable boxes, routers, entertainment systems and such. Designing your home to have all your technology in a equipment case (called a rack in our industry) 
• Working with a technology designer like Level Up as early in the process as possible is the best approach - as soon as architectural plans have been created. 

Building a home? Book your free design consultation and visit our experience showroom to see, hear and touch all the latest in home technology.