Smart Home Planning: Here’s How It Works

Proper planning is the foundation for your perfect smart home. It’s important from the very beginning to:

> Plan early

Start early by jotting down your wishes and expectations for your smart home, and keep an open mind to new ideas. Focus first on a specific area, such as energy savings or lighting. Our checklist will help you with this.

Let all the contractors involved know well in advance that your new home will be a LOXONE Smart Home—ideally as soon as you start getting quotes. The earlier you start planning your smart home, the smoother the construction phase will be.

> Define your budget

A smart home doesn’t have to be expensive. The price depends on the range of features. The true strength of LOXONE is that it can grow with your needs. If you start with a Miniserver and basic functions, you can later equip your home with additional smart features. Plus: Nearly all smart home features have a positive impact on cost optimization!

Automation is increasingly becoming the standard in electrical installations. The government also supports the use of automation technology and offers subsidies.

We have a few tips for you for the planning phase:

• Bring a LOXONE Partner on board. Our partners are trained by us and have full LOXONE Expertise. They’ll be happy to support you with your smart home project. Find a LOXONE partner near you.
• Number of buttons: As is often the case, less is more! That’s why we recommend our LOXONE Standard Button when planning your home construction. With single, double, or triple clicks, you can control various functions in your home. The LOXONE Standard Button lets you control lighting, shading, and—if needed—music.
• Adequately sized distribution boxes: During the planning phase of your smart home, space must be set aside for the entire infrastructure. Keyword: space in the distribution box. The rule of thumb here is to allow a 20% reserve upon completion of the house.
• Sufficient empty conduit: Make sure to include sufficient empty conduit in the ceiling, walls, and floor—as well as between the distribution boxes—during the smart home planning phase. This will save you effort and unsightly repair work in the future.

The structural work and installation phase focuses on installing the sensors. We recommend a minimum set of sensors in your LOXONE plan:

• Standard per room: Temperature sensor, motion detector, contact sensor on all windows accessible from the outside and easily accessible doors, push button.
• Standard per house: Internet connection, contact sensor on the garage door, wind sensor, rain sensor.

Just as important as the sensors themselves is the wiring for them. Check with your LOXONE Partner to find out which implementation is best suited for your smart home.

The final installation phase includes what is known as the peripheral test. When wiring, it’s important to identify and label all connections to maintain a clear overview. The peripheral test verifies whether the inputs and outputs in your smart home project have been connected correctly—for example, whether the temperature sensors have been wired properly and named correctly in LOXONE Config.

Once the peripheral test has been successfully completed, it’s time to configure the smart home functions. The basic functions are implemented during the initial programming. From automatic shading to intelligent room control and lighting scenes, everything is configured using the pre-built program modules from LOXONE Planning.

With the basic functions now up and running, you’ll spend your first few weeks and months in your new home as a smart home owner. As you settle in, your habits will evolve, and you may find that one or two additional features would be “nice to have.” That’s where practical optimization comes in. It’s best to schedule this appointment with your LOXONE Partner right when you move in.

The purpose of this meeting is to clarify the customer’s requirements and refine the programming. For example, scenes can be customized, or special features and requests can be implemented.