New build - which SmartHome system?

  • Erstellt am 2020-02-14 11:38:18

matte

2020-04-22 08:45:07
  • #1
Sorry, but what does that have to do with intuitiveness when I have 46 (!) buttons alongside 11 room controllers and 2 touch displays, plus 2 other control systems? I haven’t even started with operation on the phone.

What are the buttons good for? So that you can operate the blinds in every room? That’s exactly what a controller is for. Or are they for the lights? That should be solved by presence detectors. The motion sensors are not a unique feature of KNX, but they do make the system much more intuitive.

A brief excursion into our house:
We have about 190m² with 11 room controllers (MDT glass button 2 smart) and the Gira X1 as logic engine and visualization for the phone. For that, there is a presence detector in almost every room.

Blinds go up/down automatically in the morning/evening, during the day they are automatically shaded. In the parents’ area, the covering only goes down in the evening, and up in the morning only after pressing a button in the bathroom.
When the TV is turned on, the bus system decides, depending on the brightness and position of the coverings, whether a command is necessary and lowers them. Additionally, the subwoofer is powered on and the presence detector is locked for lighting. Also, the Sonos in the kitchen is muted.
When the TV is turned off, the covering goes up if it’s daytime. If automatic shading is necessary, that is started instead. If it’s dark outside, the covering stays down.

If we open a window or door, the covering goes to the desired position for ventilation.
For windows with venetian blinds, only the slats are adjusted; for doors, the covering goes up so you can go outside. Unless the door is tilted open, then only the slat is adjusted. By the way, that works with MDT blind actuators out of the box without further logic. Window contacts are necessary for this. For tilt/open differentiation at doors, two contacts per door were installed.

When it comes to lighting: we have a presence detector in almost every room that automatically controls the lighting. Exceptions are, for example, the dining table lamp or the bathroom mirror cabinet. Between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., areas that can be dimmed only turn on dimmed and turn off again dimmed.
If no presence is detected, the lights turn off. This also applies to manually switched lamps.

The presence detector in the guest WC switches the light and starts light background music via Sonos. The roller shutter works as described above; no manual operation is necessary.

If I think about it, we really only use 5 of the 11 buttons regularly (2x in the bedroom next to the bed, bathroom, kitchen, and office).
The rest just hangs there, provides the temperature for heating control, and is usually unnecessary. If you add children, you get 2 more in the children’s rooms and one in the children’s bathroom.
I don’t know why I’d need the massive amount of buttons anymore.

You have to stop thinking about KNX in terms of participants and think in terms of functions. With scenes, you operate many participants simultaneously and everyone knows what to do.
For example, if you want to cook, one button on the room controller is enough to turn on the lights, start the music, supply potential standby consumers like the extractor hood with power, and turn the ventilation up a bit.

There are no limits to ideas here, but the only thing this has in common with conventional electrics is that you have sockets and lights and are supplied with power.

Of course, you can have it built that way, but I think it’s wasted money and would find it a shame to spend so much and then not use the possibilities.
The advantages of KNX hardly come into play here.
 

Mycraft

2020-04-22 08:49:20
  • #2
Yes, a lot can be reduced there. This is once again an example of why KNX is considered expensive. Because simply much more is planned and installed than necessary, and it then becomes neither smart nor intuitive, but just as many manual interventions as possible. Which is completely unnecessary and out of place in an intelligent building. I would still change a lot in the offer.

In contrast, important things like PMs and window contacts are practically completely neglected.
 

Notstrom

2020-04-22 08:51:08
  • #3


Do you have examples?

: Thanks for the detailed explanation. I think we'll go through it again tomorrow. The BA switches were overall rather the result of "conventional" thinking or "not letting go."
How do I turn off the light when I / the kids are in bed? How do you control that via the presence detector?
 

matte

2020-04-22 08:59:49
  • #4
Just briefly as an example, our room controller MDT Glastaster Smart:

It has 6 sensor surfaces, which can either work as 6 buttons on one level or in 3 levels with 4 buttons each. In the latter case, the top two buttons are used to switch between the levels.
The 6 buttons are more than enough for a normal room.
At first, I did it like this:
2 buttons for roller shutter up/down
2 buttons for temperature up/down
2 buttons to switch lighting, etc.

So still conventional in KNX.

The heating (underfloor heating) is hardly ever adjusted. If it is, it now only runs via the phone, where I have all rooms together with the setpoint adjustment.
The roller shutter is also not used much and the lighting is controlled via the PM anyway.
What remains is the button on the wall, which is really only needed for scenes.

I don’t want to offend you, I was the same in the beginning. But I would really strongly recommend that you delve deeper into the subject. Otherwise, you buy the proverbial pig in a poke and after that you don’t even know exactly what you spent all the money on and how you can use it...
 

Notstrom

2020-04-22 09:03:38
  • #5


I would be massively overwhelmed with 6 buttons, personally that’s too little for me.

The basement ceiling will be installed tomorrow, from next Monday the cables will be laid in the ceiling, I think we don’t have much time left...

p.s. the displays are at the same time also the doorbell system.
 

matte

2020-04-22 09:39:53
  • #6
Oh dear, that is rather late...

I would therefore focus on what is important right now:

- Are you getting a suspended ceiling? I rather think not, right? Then you need to NOW determine positions for presence detectors in the rooms. Since there is no time to deal with different models and their pros/cons, I would now limit myself to adhering to certain basic rules.
For example, that PDs do not look through open room doors to prevent false triggering if a door is open.

Whether you then install a PD there right away or not is up to you. But at least you would have the option to mount one. The box can also be plastered and painted over - after being measured in the plan - so it won’t be visible at first.

Which concrete boxes you need also depends on which PD you want to use. My electrician used simple ceiling switch boxes, which greatly limited me regarding the choice of PD.
I believe it would be best to use Kaiser HaloX with a mineral fiber cover here, then the holes are sealed immediately and cut out properly after the PD has been selected.
However, I do not want to give an actual recommendation here because I do not know enough about it. For pre-steps can say more about that?

The green bus cable must go into the box, that’s it.

Also, only the green cable goes to the intended push button positions. So it’s not critical now whether the box is actually used later.

If you want to do it that way, you could draw the positions for PDs on the floor plans you have thought of and post them here. You will surely get input on which positions you can improve.
The same applies to the positions of the switch arrays.
 

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