What now, I thought preparing isn’t worth it? Then I’ll just do a "normal" electrical installation, lay the KNX bus cable everywhere, and in 10 years replace the components step by step?
If you do a KNX installation and also plan for the future and lay the bus cable everywhere where something can be switched, then it is worth it. Then you can later quickly rewire something, or add another switch or similar here or there.
But if you install conventional wiring, then the bus cable next to it is as useful as a fifth wheel.
Of course, you could then install flush-mounted actuators with great difficulty, but you end up spending many times more than a proper KNX installation would have originally cost, and with flush-mounted actuators you also have fewer possibilities.
Conclusion:
With a KNX installation, it is worth thinking about where something might be later and laying the bus cable and possibly power cables there... with a conventional installation, a bus cable is superfluous...
I am of the (unpopular) opinion that it’s all hype
People thought the same about computers and mobile communication and many other things that are everyday today. In industry and commercial sectors, nothing works anymore without bus systems.
But is KNX really cheaper? After all, the electrician has to lay everything in a star topology, which he normally wouldn’t do. That costs more materials and a lot more labor time. Or am I seeing this wrong?
I would like to use KNX to centrally control the blinds and because of the nicer switches, but I’m afraid it will be too expensive.
I posted a graphic further up. There you can see from when KNX becomes cheaper. If you get a competent partner on board and avoid unnecessary frills, KNX isn’t as expensive as it is always claimed to be.
I also have heating and electric blinds. The heating is so slow that I can’t set anything anyway, the blinds have switches – whether they were more expensive than KNX I don’t know.
I don’t really need KNX for either.
The heating in a modern house regulates itself with or without KNX or another bus system. Provided you have a heating system with some intelligence on board and the rest is sensibly built and set up. You really don’t need KNX for this… in an old building, the situation is quite different.
Your blind switches were not necessarily more expensive… probably much cheaper even… but they likely cannot do more than blind up/down… here a bus system has much more potential…
But it’s similar again to the phone… some people just need it to make calls, and others to listen to music, surf the internet, and write messages.
Your normal switches are like a rotary phone. KNX blind switches are a smartphone by comparison.
But to each their own.
Most providers understand home automation as controlling heating/ventilation via app and at most programmable blinds – that’s it.
Not only the providers… especially the builders often don’t want anything else.