Home Automation Info

Your home data network will likely be important infrastructure to support your chosen home automation solution. While many legacy automation solutions or technology can be installed completely separate from your home data network, more and more the latest technology plugs into your existing home ethernet network and may rely on it as the sole communication path to other components of the automation system.

For new homes or major remodels, Structured Wiring Systems should be strongly considered for the installation of telephone, distributed catv, security sensors and smoke alarms, and Cat5 cable for the home Ethernet network and distributed audio/video controls. These systems are great for organizing the cabling runs for all the above subsystems, and more importantly facillitating modification and maintenance of subsystems in the future. Also, cable costs can be reduced through the use of multi-conductor cable designed specifically for structured wiring runs.

A state-of-the-art whole-house automation solution may place increased demands on the home ethernet network increasing the total number of ports, RJ45 jack locations, and total bandwidth required to support all the devices that will plug into the network. However, with the exception of streaming digital audio/video the bandwidth requirement for control system data can typically be accomodated by a 10Kbps connection (i.e 10BaseT). The basic home 4 port router provides four 100kbps ports. This 100Kbps (a.k.a. fast ethernet) bandwidth can be shared by multiple devices if an Ethernet Switch is inserted in the channel. So a 5 port switch allows 5 devices to connect to the home network using a single port on the router. Unless your planning on frequent downloads of large video files or have more than 2 or 3 family members simultaneously accessing the Internet on a daily basis, you could support up to 20 devices on your home data network with one 4-port router and four 5-port switches without a noticeable degradation in email or web surfing performannce.

Okay what about WiFi? Wireless Ethernet will compliment your wired Ethernet network nicely, and most wireless baseband stations are also 4-port routers. But, unless you're using a pre-IEEE 802.11n baseband station, your 802.11b/g station/router will typically max out the available WiFi bandwidth with 3-5 wireless devices connected.