For smart home builders or installers who don’t plan for structured wiring—known as Smart Wiring in Australia—it’s time to ask why?
A recent U.S. media post in CEpro says the biggest piece of the future-proofing puzzle lies in structured wiring or Smart Wiring. Namely bundles of cable that connect different rooms and areas within a home to handle all that bandwidth demand as homes fill up with technology.
The article says a “common structured or smart wiring plan consists of coaxial cables, several fibre optic cables and lots of Ethernet cables (Cat5e, Cat6, etc)”. It adds:
“Structured wiring can be run to every room in a home and terminated with a variety of specialised wall plates and ports for easy plug and play connection to the home network. This will allow homeowners in the future to connect more of their devices directly to high-bandwidth cabling, such as fibre. It will also alleviate the pressure on hardworking Wi-Fi networks, which can become overwhelmed with signal noise.”
“It goes without saying that structured wiring is easiest to plan and install during construction, when walls are open. Taking the time and care to integrate cabling in house plans can have a tangible impact on the home’s appreciation and resale value. It can also save the future owners from taking on an expensive (and likely inevitable) retrofit to add structured wiring later on.”
“One of the biggest benefits of distributing structured wiring throughout the home is the burden it takes off the wireless network. Part of that is because more devices can be connected directly but can also strengthen Wi-Fi connections as well.”
“With more speedy and higher bandwidth cabling available, homeowners can take advantage of whole home mesh Wi-Fi systems. A mesh Wi-Fi system includes wireless satellite nodes that can be plugged directly into a structured wiring Ethernet port in the wall. Once plugged into the wired network, these nodes extend the range of the Wi-Fi router’s full wireless signal, and help the network manage the onslaught of signals it receives.”