Designing a B&O bungalow

Hello everyone

I'm just in the throws of getting a bungalow built on some land we have, and I'm wandering about building in smart lighting/cabling etc

The bungalow will have a large living room-kitchen diner, plus a large entrance hall, a bedroom, a wet room and a larger bedroom. The property will be overlooking countryside and have decking on its westerly end, where the lands drops away steeply. The bedrooms and wet room will be attached to the rectangle of the bungalow.

From a B&O point of view, what would you start thinking about now? I'll move our 7-55 to the end of the main room, hopefully flanked by some Beolab 5's. The 5-42 can go on our bedroom wall.

What smart heating systems would you build in(Nest!) What cabling would you build in?

Thanks in advance

Air tight construction, highly insulated with a heat recovery system. Nest is not actually very high tech for controls.

Skirting ducts for cables; don't build cables in that you can't change later. 

Graham

Cat7 to every hole

Go with radiora2. It works beautifully with the new network link televisions.

Nest is ideal for the thermostat. It has great possibilities for integration into home automation. No other system can compare.

Phillips Hue is also great for simple installation and integration into home automation.

vikinger:

Air tight construction, highly insulated with a heat recovery system. Nest is not actually very high tech for controls.

Skirting ducts for cables; don't build cables in that you can't change later. 

Graham

You have no clue. Nest is ideal. With an Amazon Echo, you can even control Nest with voice commands.

vikinger:

Skirting ducts for cables; don't build cables in that you can't change later. 

I had all my skirting screwed on with my cables dropped in behind them. Ok its a bit of work to have to refill and paint over the screws should you decide to change some cables but its seldom you will need access.

No matter what flooring (poured or suspended) run under floor cable ducting where you might want rear speakers.

Run all your cables to one point where you can do all your connections.

beojeff:

vikinger:

Air tight construction, highly insulated with a heat recovery system. Nest is not actually very high tech for controls.

Skirting ducts for cables; don't build cables in that you can't change later. 

Graham

You have no clue. Nest is ideal. With an Amazon Echo, you can even control Nest with voice commands.

Thanks. I looked at Nest very carefully for my daughter's new heating system. We decided that unless you wanted to play around with telephone remote control etc and the system powering up and down according to whether you were in or not  it was not appropriate.

Most users (according to a Google search) seem unable to quantify any real savings.

Much better to ask why people have formed a particular opinion.

EDIT. UK Nest has no air con control, cannot control boilers with a separate hot water storage cylinder, and is in reality a fairly simple thermostat, albeit with a nice weighty control wheel and remote activation capabilities.

Graham. PE.

I use the Nest Protect smoke and CO alarm and am seriously impressed by it. The dimming light during the evenings that adapts automatically to your movements by learning them over a period of time is particularly impressive, and the light itself is a useful feature I make use of practically every night. Very clever technology and brilliant idea.

I agree with Jeff that in terms of future home integration Nest is the way forward, at least in my opinion and hence why I am buying into it at this time. However, the thermostat is not yet intuitive enough for me at this time and struggles with combo condensing boilers so I am waiting for an update. In terms of updates, Google (who own Nest) are very slow at both updating and bringing out new products. I am also waiting for them to update the Nest Cam as I don't like the white cable on the black camera and, I am waiting for them to offer recording for free rather than subscription based. When this is more viable an option and when they release new products more regularly (none for at least a year so far) then I will jump onboard again.

Fortunately, there are many other third parties making products compatible with Nest and this is the reason I am buying into the technology at this time. I am particularly interested in what Yale (doors, locks etc) are currently doing, their doorbells that allow you to see who is at your door from anywhere in the world and whether to open it automatically or not, for example. Again, clever stuff that interests me.

For someone to "look into" getting Nest and deciding against it is quite different from someone actually living with Nest. I've had Nest for 3 years now. I've never regretted getting it. The unit and interface are simple, elegant, and minimalist. As Band 'Oh mentioned, the Nest learns your patterns and adapts to them. After awhile, you don't need to make many adjustments to the thermostat. There is SO much that you can do with it in terms of beointegration. Also, if you add an Amazon Echo, you can adjust the thermostat just by speaking, for example "Alexa, set the Nest to 70 degrees." That's it. Totally hands-free! You can also create geofencing to set the temperature automatically when you get to a specified proximity to home. I love being able to leave my office and use my iPhone to let Nest know that I'm headed home. It has the climate to the ideal comfort setting once I arrive home. When I'm in bed, if I feel that I'm getting too warm, I simply say (hands-free and with my eyes closed ) "Alexa, set the Nest to 69 degrees." I never need to get out of bed -- or even open my eyes! Later, you can add the smoke detectors which act as motion sensors to better detect home occupancy or vacancy. You can also add the cameras.

Perhaps most importantly, Nest was AMAZINGLY simple to install. Prior to Nest, I had looked at other thermostats to replace my old one. I looked at the instructions in the box and RAN. There was no WAY I could understand the complicated technical instructions. However, this was not at all the case with Nest. Nest has you tick off boxes for which colors of wires you currently have. Then, Nest sends you an installation diagram tailored specifically for the type of HVAC system that you have. You can have this installed yourself in less than 15 minutes.

Nest is very impressive with a lot of potential in my opinion. If I had a different boiler I would buy the current thermostat but in the meantime I need to wait a little longer. I am with nPower who offer it at a reduced price but will eventually offer it for free for nPower customers.

I neglected to say in my previous post that the iPhone app I use is brilliantly designed and well thought out. It's a joy to use and as Jeff say's, couldn't be any simpler. Certainly, I believe, Nest has a lot going for it, especially considering the former Apple inventor started it (Tony Fadell, key inventor of the iPod) and of course Google who bought into Nest around 2014 for more than 3 billion dollars. Pretty good start into home automation I would say and a brand I can trust going forward - hopefully.

Looks like Nest UK thermostat has been upgraded since last year when I looked at it, removing at least two of the drawbacks it previously had (in my non-user opinion.)

https://store.nest.com/uk/product/thermostat/?gclid=CLC0jZruxMwCFYIW0wodGbEE8w

Graham

Wow that sounds awesome! 

Did you consider buying some beolaps 18's for the main entrance? :)

I'm interested in getting Nest and probably will. Problem is here in the UK as previously pointed out that radiators and central heating systems are a bit more complicated. However Nest do seem to be addressing this with the Water heating separate control and a system that understands radiators, not air con based systems.

With the work we're having done we're going to be moving our boiler, water tank etc anyway so I'm going to look into at least having a Nest thermostat for the new back-of-house ground floor extension (which will most likely be underfloor heating) and then a Nest thermostat to control the heating (radiators) in the rest of the (current) house which also includes some ground floor rooms also.

Not sure if there's a lot of point to doing that or of perhaps the extension Nest could also include the rest of the downstairs radiators and another to do upstairs. Not even sure if this is that easy to do in the UK! Might start getting expensive

Chris Hassell:

I'm interested in getting Nest and probably will. Problem is here in the UK as previously pointed out that radiators and central heating systems are a bit more complicated. However Nest do seem to be addressing this with the Water heating separate control and a system that understands radiators, not air con based systems.

 

 

With the work we're having done we're going to be moving our boiler, water tank etc anyway so I'm going to look into at least having a Nest thermostat for the new back-of-house ground floor extension (which will most likely be underfloor heating) and then a Nest thermostat to control the heating (radiators) in the rest of the (current) house which also includes some ground floor rooms also.

 

 

Not sure if there's a lot of point to doing that or of perhaps the extension Nest could also include the rest of the downstairs radiators and another to do upstairs. Not even sure if this is that easy to do in the UK! Might start getting expensive

Something great with the Nest system is that you can add their smoke detectors throughout the home to also serve as occupancy/vacancy sensors. Yesterday, I installed an August smart lock. The August lock works with Nest to send home/away commands to Nest based on the locking/unlocking of the door.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Martin Wakefield of Bang and Olufsen Newcastle is kindly going to show me how the Lumitron lights/the Essence etc work in an integrated house. His own!

I'd love a Beosound 5 playing Spotify etc, but I've been using my IPad mini this morning and it's just such a breeze! Playing the Crossy Road App whilst listening to hits of the Millenium is a laugh Is the music system dead?

Ill need a rectangular sofa, probably in two parts. Any manufacturer suggestions? The ceiling will be vaulted as high as a bungalow. Will this induce lots of echoes etc Rugs needed?

This is the rough shape and look, with a kitchen diner where the camera is. The 7-55 at the end flanked by Beolab 5's. 3's or 12-3's wall mounted at this end maybe? I've seen 3's used at the mid point in a surround sound system but didn't really get an appreciation of what their worth was.

Chris Townsend:

Crossy Road App

A Melbourne game developer's

Now go buy "Duet" by my sons

Or if you like platforms "Bean Dreams"

The current house hold favourite is "Monument Valley" but it's not out on the Apple TV

Chris Townsend:

I've seen 3's used at the mid point in a surround sound system but didn't really get an appreciation of what their worth was

BL3s on stands would be more "tuneable" and less odd if at different angles

Hi Chris,

Some general hints...

The suitability of any particular heating control system will depend to some extent on the type of heating system you intent to employ. Are you looking at a gas boiler? ground or air source heat pump? solar? and would you prefer radiators or underfloor heating? (or some mix of these?).

Consider how you intend to live in the space and zone the heating accoringly - you might want to heat different parts of the propertly at different times. It can also make sense to zone any towel rails seperately to enable these to be heated independantly too.

Philips hue integrates well with the blgw but I don't feel it's that well suited for whole house, especially within a new build scenario where you have many more options available - the range of wall switches is rather limited and whilst app control of lighting is very useful there are times when you just want to walk into / out of a room and switch the lights on or off at the wall.

Given you are talking about open plan areas, you might want to consider floor sockets in some places - try to think about where you might place sofas and side tables, floor standing lamps etc - basically any locations where you might want power, lighting, or wired data without trailing leads from the nearest wall.

If you opt for 7.1 surround, the surround speakers (those you've seen part way down the sides of a room) should ideally be direcly to the left and right of your seating position (or just behind this point), with the rear speakers then placed somewhere behind your seating position. In my small 'cinema' room I didn't notice much difference between 5.1 and 7.1 configurations, but there may be more to be gained in a larger space.

Martin.