I am building a house and trying to avoid power bricks and cables hanging on the wall for motion sensors, blind shutters, “add next smart house blinky here”.
This is just an aexample photo:
So I was thinking each IOT needs to have internet connection anyway. What about if I run a single CAT cable to each room, and position a switch in each room to split to couple CATs in each room (power socket, tv socket, window, ceiling fan). Main CAT from each room to go to the server room router. That way I can have one cable per room coming out from the router. And with some inexpensive POE switches in each room I can split to extra IOTs.
That way I wont be saturating the home wireless and needing expensive APs. And in the same time can deliver POE. Alternatively I can modify the CATs to run only 4 wires for 100MB network and remaining 4 for 12V if POE injection is complicated or routers cant deliver required IOT current.
I must say most IOTs will be DIY ESP/Arduino/MCUs
Is it possible you guys think?
If you can - run conduit in the walls, as then it’s super easy to pull different cables whenever you need them.
I would personally avoid doing a switch per room and instead do multiple CAT5/6/7 drops per room that all route back to a central rack / router somewhere. It’s much easier to manage centrally and gives you a lot more flexibility as and when higher bandwidth stuff comes along.
If your budget can stretch to it, really recommend the Ubiquiti range of networking gear, the POE switches are super reasonable and will massively reduce the number of power bricks you have to have around - you can find POE versions of most HA stuff these days !!