Setting up a wish list for the new home. Things I already have on the list:

Smart thermostat
Smart sprinkler system
Some Wifi lights
Smart garage opener

Any other recommendations?

Alexa/Google to control all of it by voice.

IP Security Cameras

Roomba
Ring Doorbell Pro

Not sure what you meant by WiFi lights, but I'd do the switches rather than the actual bulbs. I have the bulbs now, and they get knocked off of the hub every time we have a power bump. Even outside of that, they're a little finicky.

FWIW, I also have a couple of Nest thermostats, Rachio Sprinkler controller, and Chamberlain MyQ garage door bridge. I have echos in the bedrooms, one in the living area/kitchen, and one in the garage. I also have a Sesame Smart Lock, but if I had it to do over again, I think I'd go with August. Also, maybe think about a smart doorbell with camera or some type of surveillance setup (Arlo cameras).

edit: saw Roomba listed above. I agree.

Go with a Skybell over a ring. No monthly costs.

New Nest Thermostat E is nice. I have it in my house. Very sleek with the new white plastic covering, blends with my wall seamlessly.

Ethernet cables run to rooms you want that terminates in a central point for a router.

Neato Botvac over a roomba, room mapping tech at under 1/2 the cost. I have the Connected D3 at my place.

Easy setup for either a mesh router system or terminated Cat6 cables in the ceiling for wifi routers across the house. Maybe even a power outlet in the roof for the routers if necessary. Potential power outlets for security cameras both inside and outside covering all doors. All the Nest cameras need power, if that is what you go with.

I'd consider ethernet cables and/or power at light switch height in rooms where you might one day add a wall touch screen to that controls lights, audio, etc. Something to power the devices.

Not "tech" per-se, but I'd have a charging station where you can easily, and cleanly, store all of your mobile devices for charging without cluttering up a counter top.

I'd suggest an Ecobee over a Nest, but we take advantage of some of the humidity-related controls that Ecobee has that Nest didn't offer.

Conduit, conduit, conduit everywhere. Especially since most of your houses over in Texas are built slab on grade and you can't quickly and easily run new wire through the crawlspace. And make it big conduit, things like HDMI cables have a much bigger end than cable and your longer runs of the higher quality stuff are pretty thick/stiff to begin with. Don't use 90 degree angles anywhere, there are elbows with a wider bend radius that are a whole lot easier to pass cable through.

A central media closet makes it a lot easier to control everything. It's one of the best decisions we made. The antenna and cable modem come in, inside is the cable modem, router, two desktops, receiver + stereo equipment and game systems. Coming out are all audio channels (prewire these AND use the right gage wire for the length of your run), HDMI to the tv in our family room (ARC, so it's a single cable run). Extremely simple for now, but we have the capability to run network cable or anything else if we choose to any other point in the house because of that 3" pipe running up to the attic and down tot he crawlspace.

If you're doing cameras it's also a good place to put the DVR. I'd recommend running conduit to each camera location but to each their own. I've run into wireless interference issues and keeping things wired helps control that.

More about media closets - it may help if you upgrade your current receiver to something with multiple HDMI inputs. We bought an Onkyo TX-NR757 and all game systems + PC run to that with the single cable I mentioned to the TV. It's basically our system selector (set the TV to 'Receiver', select whichever system you want with the receiver remote), and it also handles older stuff (XBox, PS2, GameCube) that run on Composite input. All this stuff is installed on wireframe shelving and has a dedicated circuit to a bank of 8 outlets behind it.

Smart bulbs, switches and whatnot aren't there yet IMO so we didn't bother with this. I find a lot of the home automation stuff to be a mess and the systems that take care of the entire house like what Lutron makes were very expensive when I priced them out. There are a lot of different providers for thermostats, lighting, doorbells, ... but none of them talk to any kind of simplified, centralized control yet as far as I know. Maybe in 5-10 years something will come along but I'd imagine it would require new hardware.

I have a lot of smart house things but my Neato Botvac is the best

To come home every day to clean floors/carpet is a beautiful thing and then to dump all the pollen out is one of the best parts of my day (that's kind of sad...but one of my kids has bad allergies and it's nice knowing it helps)

Nest outdoor cams and secure are expensive but really sleek and easy...I gotta thing there are easier and cheaper ways to go..plus running a cable to where I wanted the cables was difficult... The new Yale door lock is also much better than my KEVO (kevo sucks don't buy).

Phillips Hue light with IFTTT works great only problem is when guests stay I forget to turn it off and all the lights come on at sunrise and slow like the sunrise (outside lights go off)

Tagging on to the Fife's post, the media/network closet should be easily accessible from above so that it's easy to drop more wires into the conduit.

Additionally, if you have a media room with a closet to hold your A/V stuff (maybe it's the same room as the network closet mentioned above, design it so that you can access the equipment from the backside as well. Possibly a small door/cabinet door in the adjacent room. this will allow you to easily mess with wiring with having to pull out the receiver and work in a confined space.

At some point I'm going to cut out the drywall on the backside of my media closet and frame a cabinet door in the next room.

Schlage makes some excellent smart locks. One line is HomeKit enabled and one is Z-Wave. I'm rebuilding after Harvey, and everything is getting upgraded to smart stuff.

in

Adam Ag 98 said:

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Tagging on to the Fife's post, the media/network closet should be easily accessible from above so that it's easy to drop more wires into the conduit.

Additionally, if you have a media room with a closet to hold your A/V stuff (maybe it's the same room as the network closet mentioned above, design it so that you can access the equipment from the backside as well. Possibly a small door/cabinet door in the adjacent room. this will allow you to easily mess with wiring with having to pull out the receiver and work in a confined space.

At some point I'm going to cut out the drywall on the backside of my media closet and frame a cabinet door in the next room.

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I wish that I had thought of that. I don't need to get behind the hardware too often, but (when I do) spinning the boxes with all the wiring is a real pain.

Be sure to put an HVAC outflow in the closet as well. It can get hot in there. I had to retrofit an outflow vent and add an outflow fan for the hot air.

CapCity12thMan said:

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in the areas where it makes sense, install electrical outlet receptacles with built in USB plugs...

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In my view, you simply cannot include too many of these. I have several in every room.

I haven't tried their USB cover, but we have the light covers in our house. So. F'ing. Brilliant.

LED outlet faceplates