Smart-Home Wiring: Plan Once, Pay Once

Most smart-home retrofits cost three to five times what the same wiring would have cost during framing. The technology stack changes; the wiring infrastructure does not. Cat6 in the wall today serves whatever protocol comes next. Power outlets where you need them, conduit runs where you might run something later these are the cheap insurance moves that make a custom home future-proof. Here is the conversation we have with every client, before drywall closes the walls.

What we always run

Three things, on every build, regardless of whether the client thinks they will use them.

1. Cat6 (or Cat6A) to every TV location, every desk location, every camera location, and every wireless access point. WiFi is great until it isn't. Hardwired Ethernet to the things that matter (the office, the home theater, the security cameras, the wireless access points themselves) is the difference between a network that works and a network that frustrates. Cat6 in the wall during framing costs $2 per foot. Adding a Cat6 run after drywall costs $200 plus the patching.

2. A central low-voltage panel. Usually in a closet near the office, sized as a 28-inch enclosure with power, ventilation, and a patch panel. This is where the network gear, the camera NVR, the smart-home hub, and the audio matrix all live. Without it, equipment ends up scattered in three closets and the cabling becomes a mess. With it, the system is serviceable.

3. Conduit runs in three or four critical paths. Two-inch flexible conduit from the central panel to the attic, to the basement, to the garage, and to a high-and-dry spot under the front porch. These conduit runs are empty cable highways. Whatever protocol shows up in 2032 (a new lighting system, a new camera type, a new climate sensor mesh) can be pulled through the conduit without opening walls.

Lighting controls

Lutron is the standard we recommend for most homes. Specifically: RadioRA 3 for retrofits and most full-house custom builds; HomeWorks for the highest-end estate builds where wired switches are non-negotiable. The system is established, the dealer network is broad, and the integrations into Apple HomeKit and Alexa are mature.

Where we caution: wireless lighting protocols (Casetá, Z-Wave, Zigbee) are great for retrofits but limited at scale. If a client has 80 fixtures and 30 keypads, they want a wired system. The wires don't drop out. The keypads don't lose pairing.

We work through the lighting design with the architect and a Lutron certified designer during construction documents. The keypad locations are placed before the electrician runs cable. Changing them later costs real money.

Audio: pre-wire vs install

We pre-wire audio (in-ceiling speaker locations, in-wall amplifier rough-ins) on every home where the client even might want it later. The wire is cheap. The patching is cheap. Whether they install speakers at the time of the build or seven years later is up to them.

What we don't recommend pre-wiring: outdoor speakers, except in obvious spots like a covered porch with structure to mount on. Outdoor audio runs are usually situational and best left to a post-handover landscape audio designer.

Cameras

Pre-run Cat6 with PoE injectors back to the central panel, even if the cameras aren't installed yet. The locations matter: front door, garage, mudroom door, dock (if waterfront), driveway. We avoid placing cameras where they will be defeated by sun glare or backlight at common times of day; this is a real consideration in mountain locations where the sun moves dramatically across seasons.

Recording: most clients prefer cloud-based (Ubiquiti, Reolink, etc.) but we leave the option open for an on-site NVR by sizing the closet for it. The choice can be deferred.

Climate sensors and zoning

We zone HVAC carefully four or five zones in a typical 5,000-square-foot home and we run wired thermostats. Wireless thermostats are convenient but they fail; wired ones don't. We run a Cat3 cable to each thermostat location regardless of brand, so the client can swap manufacturers later without rewiring.

Humidity sensors in the basement and crawlspace, hardwired to the central panel, are an inexpensive insurance move. The notification when a basement sump pump fails arrives before the basement floods.

What we tell clients to skip

Voice-only smart-home systems as a primary control surface. They sound modern; they age unpredictably as the major platforms shift. Use voice as a layer on top of a wired control system, not the only control surface.

Proprietary all-in-one systems that lock the home to one vendor. The vendor changes hands, the protocol gets deprecated, the client is left with $40,000 of equipment that has no upgrade path. Open standards (Matter, Thread, Lutron's documented APIs, MQTT) outlive their vendors. We bias toward them.

The number

On a typical custom home, the smart-home wiring infrastructure (cabling, central panel, conduit, low-voltage rough-in) runs $15,000 to $35,000 depending on size. Active equipment (network gear, lighting controls, cameras, audio amplifiers) is on top of that and varies wildly with scope.

Skipping the infrastructure to save the $20,000 is the most common false economy in custom building. The same work, done five years later, runs $80,000 to $150,000 because of the patching and access labor. Plan once, pay once.