I am in the process of building a new home and the plumbers, electricians and HVAC are currently doing their rough-in in the walls before insulation and drywall. After they are finished, the low voltage wire group comes and installs their lines, boxes, conduits, etc.

I met with them initially and we discussed video cameras, security system on doors and windows with alarm, audio and visual needs throughout the house.

I got the bid back and almost had a heart attack. I am going to need to scale down the wish list so I thought I would check with texags to get thoughts from others on what features they like and would recommend and other features that are a waste/never used. The quote covered an 8 camera video feed, doors and window alarm, CAT 6 and HDMI drops in all bedrooms, surround sound in both living room and media room, centralized media cabinet, and speakers throughout house.

With spray foam, I am leaning towards going ahead and spending the money to have the wires in place even if I don't currently plan to install the system to save down the road costs.

For context, we live on a 30 acre farm that is gated and our house is probably 300 yards off the road behind the entry gate.The gate has is always closed so we never really have any guests that just randomly show up at the front door unless we let them in. I write this to highlight why I may not need security cameras as that risk is lower than living for example in a non-gated subdivision. For example, I am more concerned about having a video camera at the front gate to combat potential package thieves versus a doorbell camera.

Welcome any thoughts. Thanks.

Have you considered just running conduit and running as needed down the line?

Just my $.02...

• 8 Camera Video Feed - Not sure why you need 8 cameras, but that's not too out there. I'd have one at each major entry door and then something looking out the driveway so you can see people coming up. I also like having one in the garage as we leave ours open quite a bit with kids coming in and out. So I'd say 4 is probably good. Just make sure they are installing cat5e/cat6 cable and not rg6 or something else. Any decent camera is going to be POE powered and only needs one line.
• Doors and Window Alarms - I'd go with just doors and a couple well placed motion sensors and glass break sensors. Individual alarms on each window just feel worthless these days.
• Cat6 and HDMI in each Room - If you're trying to cut back, go to a single cat6 drop in each room. That'll let you put a small switch at each location so you can plug in smart TVs, Roku/AppleTV/whatever. HDMI sounds great, but installing "whole home" video distribution is actually pretty expensive if done well. You're better off picking an ecosystem and just going with units at each TV. If you're still on satellite/cable, also have them drop RG6 at each TV as you'll need that connect satellite / cable boxes. Works a lot better than trying to put a bunch of boxes in a closet / media cabinet and run via HDMI
• Surround Sound in Living and Media Rooms - I'd just go with surround in the media room. You can get a good 3.1 sound bar for the living room that will give you great sound. No idea what your floor plan is like, but most living rooms these days are pretty open and connected to other rooms. You'll lose some of the value of surround sound in that situation vs a dedicated media room.
• Centralized Media Cabinet - I think it's worthwhile if done right. For me, I use it mainly to centralize network stuff like routers and modems and then connect wireless access points. All your other wires are going to be run back there, so easy to maintain great connectivity in the whole house. Just make sure they install a "return air duct ONLY". You will generate heat and want the system to pull air out of there. Don't put a supply because you'll bake everything in the winter. I actually have a small 6" inline fan on my return that runs 24/7 and keeps all my gear nice and cool. Also get your electrician to install a dedicated 20 amp circuit for the media cabinet. Much easier to have a place that everything can plug into and you know a hairdryer won't trip the breaker.
• Speakers Throughout the House - I pulled speaker wire all over our house and we've really only used it regularly in 2 places...master bath in the mornings getting ready and outside on the patio. Everywhere else is really just a novelty and maybe gets used once a month. Even then, think about what you use now for music. You'll most likely end up with either Amazon Echos, Apple HomePods, or Sonos. All of those have stand alone speakers you can add later and usually have better sound quality than in-ceiling speakers.

At least pull flexible conduit ( Smurf tubes) now to anything you may want to install later.
That will significantly help with the budget.

Leave room in a central location for the equipment racks that will be added.

At this stage of construction, I would run as much low voltage cable as I could...as you don't necessarily have to spend the money now to terminate and use them. Cheap investment, IMO. I love smurf tubes / empty conduit everywhere you think might want to run future wiring, but especially in the walls which will be spray foamed.

Everyone's tech preferences are a little different, but I like having two Cat 6s and one Quad RG6 run to each TV from a central location. I'm not crazy about running long HDMIs everywhere (especially, as the HDMI specs seem to be ever-changing and individual HDMI cables can be finicky). I've never done it, but you can apparently run HDMI signals via Cat 6...so I've been told. Having a second Cat 6 gives you that option and others. The one exception to running HDMIs might be for the media room. If you think you might get a fancy TV/projector setup in that room, I would run one or more very good HDMI cables to it... especially if walls that you would run the cables in will be foamed.

If you are going to set up a WiFi mesh network, be sure to run power and CAT 6 for that as well.

I still like RG6 for over-the-air antenna, assuming an antenna might work in your attic (if you are installing a radiant barrier, it might not) and your not too far from decent broadcast towers. We're about 50 miles from a cluster of towers and have no problem pulling in their signals with our new antenna. ...Nice to have when the cable/internet goes down.

Be sure to take lots of pictures and notes before the spray foaming starts!!! It's also a good time to add blocking for hanging towel bars, curtains, and TVs; assuming your builder hasn't already done so.

Good luck with your build! We're building right now too and getting close to the finish line. We broke ground Nov 2021 and expect to be done shortly after New Years.

Animal Eight 84 said:

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At least pull flexible conduit ( Smurf tubes) now to anything you may want to install later.
That will significantly help with the budget.

Leave room in a central location for the equipment racks that will be added.

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I would run a smurf tube for the ISP connection too. At least one Cat 6 and one coax and room for fiber.

IMO HDMI is a waste. They're expensive and the HDMI standard keeps evolving. Most media is going to come through a set top box like an apple tv or a roku. I can't see the utility of having a centralized video source. I wouldn't even worry about running HDMI from behind the tv to a closet or something like that anywhere other than the media room or maybe the living room. Most of the time, you can either use the smart tv functionality or get a roku and velcro it to the back of the tv or the wall behind the tv.

Cat 6 is going to give you 10gig ethernet up to 180ft (in the future when the network equipment becomes more affordable.) You can stream really high quality video over that.