Smart Home Planning for a New Build: The Ten Things Worth Wiring For, and the Gadgets That Are Not

The infrastructure, before any product

Everything below rides on a few cheap things done before drywall. How to wire a new house for the future has the full electrical list; the smart-home essentials are:

• A neutral conductor at every switch box (most smart switches need it; many older houses lack it).
• Cat6, home-run to a structured wiring panel with power, at every TV, desk, ceiling access point, camera, doorbell and the garage.
• Low-voltage runs to every thermostat location, every motorized blind, the HRV control, and the irrigation controller.
• A dedicated outlet and a drain nearby for the main water shut-off valve, and a sensor wire to the mechanical room and under each sink and the laundry.
• A 40 to 60 amp EV circuit to the garage, and an empty conduit from basement to attic and to the garage for whatever comes next.

The ten that are worth it

1. Lighting control. Smart switches and dimmers (wired, with a hub or not) give you scenes, schedules, vacation mode and the ability to turn off every light from bed. Wire the switches normally with neutrals; choose the system later. Lighting planning before drywall decides where the switches go, which matters more than what brand they are.
2. Thermostat and heat pump control. A smart thermostat that talks to the heat pump (ideally the manufacturer’s own control) manages staging, humidity and schedules properly; a generic one can fight a variable-speed system. Run the communication wire the equipment needs, which is more conductors than an old furnace used.
3. Smart locks and a video doorbell. Codes for the cleaner and the kids, a log of who came in, and a camera at the door. Needs power or Cat6 at the doorbell and a normal deadbolt prep.
4. Cameras. Wired, power-over-ethernet cameras at the driveway, the front door and the back of the house record to a local box in the mechanical room; wireless ones chew batteries and bandwidth. Cat6 drops under the soffit, planned before the soffit goes on.
5. Water leak detection and automatic shut-off. The one that pays for itself: a motorized valve on the main with sensors at the water heater, washer, dishwasher and under sinks. One leak while you are at the cottage covers the cost of every item on this list.
6. Motorized blinds on the big south and west glass. Low-voltage wire to the window head before drywall; battery versions exist but you will not love changing them on a 14-foot window.
7. Energy monitoring at the panel: a clamp-on monitor shows what the heat pump, the hot tub and the dryer actually cost, which changes behaviour more than any sticker.
8. Garage, gate and driveway. Openers with apps and sensors; power and Cat6 at the opener, and a conduit to the gate if there is one.
9. Irrigation with a weather-aware controller, if you are watering at all; the valves and wire go in with the landscaping, the controller lives in the garage with power and network.
10. Whole-home audio where you want it: speaker wire to ceilings and the patio, Cat6 to the amplifier location. Everything else streams.

The gadgets that need nothing from the builder

Smart speakers, smart plugs, robot vacuums, connected appliances, smart bulbs in lamps, air quality monitors: all of these plug in after you move and move out with you. Do not let anyone wire the house for a specific voice assistant or a proprietary hub. The wall should be brand-agnostic; the products can change every three years and will.

What goes wrong

• A thousand dollars of smart switches with no neutral wire, so half of them cannot be installed.
• Wi-Fi cameras that drop out because the access point is in the basement and the camera is on the soffit.
• A motorized blind on a two-storey window with a battery that needs a scaffold to change.
• A thermostat that was never wired for the heat pump’s communication bus, running a variable-speed system in dumb mode.
• Everything in one app that needs a subscription nobody remembers paying, and a hub that stops being supported in year four.
• Nothing documented. Photograph the walls and label the panel. The before-drywall checklist says so for a reason.

Related guides on this site

Sources and further reading

• Electrical Safety Authority
• NRCan: heat pumps
• CMHC

Questions people ask