Just finished construction on a new house. The builder
was smart enough to run cat 5e throughout the home.
While this sounded impressive to me I reall yhad no
idea what this would mean for me. I heard terms like
Home automation and "smart homes" but really did not
know how to apply it.

I have a pretty good baseline knowldege of computers
and networking and have done some IT work but this is
an area I have never explored.

I move in in one week and I have a few issues.

#1. Home audio/video: In a miscommunication, the house
was not pre-wired for a home audio system per se. I
understand after doing some reading that cat5e can be
used for this..my question is How? I assume I need some
form of transmitter from the audio/video source and a
similar receiver/decoder on the other end? DO I need
one at EVERY access point, or is this something that is
piped down the cable and anything plugged into it can
access it? Could I plug my PC in and pipe MP3s
throughout the house?

#2 We have a hard-wired alarm system (very basic
intrusion only) I want to add glass break sensors and I
also need to add fire-alarms for insurance reasons. I
am being told this MUST be done WIRELESS? It seems the
Cat 5e should also be able to carry that same
information?

I know I am very green here and I have a siginificant
amount to learn. I appreciate anything you can offer on
these 2 questions as well as a source or two that might
educate me on utilizing the existing Cat 5e wiring,
most of what I am finding stresses X10 and it seems
that it would be counterproductiove to use X10 when I
have cat 5e

thanks

A good cource of information and learning can be found in the Hometoys E magazine here: http://www.hometoys.com/

Check out http://www.smarthome.com for your security issues.

Hi,

Cat5 in the house can help you with any of your low voltage appliances/needs. As long as you learn the "pinouts" on the RJ45 and how to terminate them with a crimper, you can hardwire anything to connect anything else in different location of the house. The use of a hub/switch will help connecting your computers, but you don't have to limit yourself to dedicating the cat5 to pc's especially since wireless access points can interconnect your PC's.

I recently wired my home with Cat 5e as well. You can run video over the wires if you're streaming over a network.

My plans are to build an A/V console from a Linux based pc which will server as the main hub for streaming video and audio throughout the house. This will also server as a Tivo recorder...yes, you can build your own Tivo

There are many things you can do with Cat 5e wiring...telephones, internet, network connectivity, streamin audio and video, etc.

CAT5 CAN be used for audio or video. Because of impedance differences, you need to get a "BALUN" (which simple stands for "Balanced -> unbalanced" transeiver.
http://www.smarthome.com/ has such things. Basically you'd have a pair of RCA (phono) plugs at each end and wire in the middle. It's point to point.

I like to use a patch panel - usually where all the wires come together. That way, if I need to direct COAX2 in the TV room to COAX on (my video monitor in the bedroom) I can. I do this if I'm partway through a movie and want to run the DVD from the den into a modulator into COAX 2.

CAT5 can be used for serial (RS-232) connections, telephone, computer network (duh) and these others.

tricks includ e that computers use one 4 of the 8 connectors.
Phone uses 2. So you can mix those.

I run serial often with 4 connectors and have put 2 serials
on 1 CAT5.

Audio/video really want its own cable.

news:comp.home.automation also has lots of info.