Home automation/audio/security help

9 years ago

Building a new home and trying to make sure we want to get everything close to how we want it. We have gotten two quotes from different companies for home automation/security/audio, etc. One company uses Control4, the other uses a combination of Bitwise with Elk Security. I have a few things I'm trying to get figured out.

1) How many speakers do we need? We want to do whole house audio and one of the bids has 2 speakers in every room. The rooms aren't hugeÃ¯Â¿Â½average is probably 12 X 15. Do we really need 2 speakers in every room?

2) Anyone have an opinion about which home automation system is better between Control4 and Bitwise?

3) One has recommended running 3 Cat6 cables to each TV. Any reason why I need three per TV?

4) One has recommended a Luxul commercial grade wireless access point that costs $735. That seems a bit nuts for a 3500 square foot house.

I'm sure I will have more questions, but that's all for now. Thanks in advance for any assistance.

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Comments (3)

buddyboyinc
9 years ago
Regarding the cat 6 - the extra lines are probably for HDMI over cat 6, so they're thinking central closet with video distribution all over the house. Maybe only one of those lines is for a Smart TV to get internet access.
kayakboy
9 years ago
2 - control4 is a very polished system. Are you going to use their touch panel controllers or your own tablets?

4 - the Luxul's are very nice, but you might just want a cheap router and a either a wireless extender or another access point. Are they going to manage the automation system or are you?
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armada
9 years ago
I looked into control 4 for my house, because I liked the idea of the system and that they purport it's cheaper than some of the other integrated system.

For me, it didn't work that way, and my quote was around 30k for the stuff I wanted. Another thing I really didn't like about control4 was that you needed a service call from a reseller technician every time you want to change something about the system.

I ended up going with a Legrand Unity system which does very similar stuff, albeit the touchscreen remote stuff isn't as cool, but I still have an LCD screen that integrates cameras, thermostat, intercom, and whole house audio.

Speaker wise, I would say 2 speakers is what I would do for that size room, but speakers don't have to be expensive. I bought a variety of types, and settled on Polk 620RT, which look and sound very nice. That being said I bought some cheap Micca speakers off amazon and I think they sound really good; excellent for the price.

I'm very happy with my Netgear Nighthawk AC router for $200 (or less on sale). Have them run one of those many cat 6's to two distributed places in the house and you'll be good. If you have to go w/more than 1 router and want it more integrated, I'd suggest Ubiquiti UniFi AC Enterprise WiFi System (on amazon). Cheaper than Luxul and I've heard very good things.

-adam

Home automation/audio/security help

Comments (3)

buddyboyinc

kayakboy

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