Home Automation System

Introduction

This project involved designing and installing a complete home automation system during a major renovation. The system is built on Home Assistant, with cabling throughout the house to support smart lighting, networking, motion sensors, and AV distribution.

With more than 300 individual cables the project required careful planning, organisation, and execution to deliver a reliable install while under .

Planning and Design

I started by planning every route in AutoCAD. With over 300 individual cable runs this was essential to ensure I had enough cable and missed no cable runs.

Running Cables

I ran all 300+ cables throughout the house — including Cat 5e, Cat 6a, 4-core power cables, and coax.

Each cable was labelled at both ends using an alphanumeric labeling scheme.
Colours were assigned by function — for example:

• Purple: General data points
• Green: Custom Smart Light Switches (Learn more about this project)
• Orange: Video distribution
• Red: Motion Sensors

Installing the racks

All cables terminate in one of two central rack locations - one at the top of the house and one at the bottom. I seperated it up to reduce the cable lengths and reduce the time required to run all the cables. The wires are guided into the racks using cable trays and are then terminated into patch panels for clean cable management.
The racks contains the core of the automation system, containing networking, control, and media distribution.

Rack Components:

• Networking: UniFi switches and access points for reliable wired and wireless coverage
• Server: Dedicated Home Assistant server running everything in the house
• Light Control: Shelly 4PM Pros
• Light Switches: Custom-designed low-voltage smart switches (Check them out here)
• Media Distribution: HDMI extenders for video distribution
• Power: Rack-mounted power distribution units (PDUs)

Software

The brain of the system is Home Assistant. This integrates all systems into a single control interface — lighting, heating, security, media, and automations. By running everything locally, the system avoids cloud dependency and remains private and reliable.