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Thread: Any interesting home networking / av set ups here?

  1. #1
    Master
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    Any interesting home networking / av set ups here?

    Have seen these threads on other forums, not sure if its been done here, but if not why not!


    Heres mine.


    Sanus cabinet with cat 6, RG6 and speaker patch panels
    Unifi AP mounted on top of the cabinet
    HDanywhere 4k HDMI matrix
    Ubiquiti 8 port switch with POE | Hue hub
    Sky q box (connected to matrix) | ATV 4k (also connected) | Arlo base station | Synology linkstation


    Its all in the utility under the counter, also mounted in there is the ONT for fibre connection connected directly to a Unifi security gateway.


    I have one other AP in the house mounted in the ceiling on the top floor and i have an IW AP outside in a shomera which also has my cloudkey connected to its POE port.


    Pretty happy with it now, lot of work went into setting everything up as i amn't a networking expert, the HD anywhere hub works very well and the Unifi set up is great for a home user.


    Plans are to tidy up cabling a bit more and maybe move the speaker patch panels and coax that i dont use to a smaller standalone rack to make a litte more space, maybe add one more switch.



  2. #2
    Grand Master wileeeeeey's Avatar
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    That looks incredible. I'm in the process of moving and have been watching a lot of videos on this for the next house. Also will help if setting up my own cameras instead of relying on Ring etc.

    Did you want any of the TechFlow videos on YouTube? The comments are the best part but are a bit of a blood bath. The guy who does the videos is beyond jarring.

  3. #3
    Master mindforge's Avatar
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    This looks impressive, forgive my ignorance, but what does it all do? I'm about to do some major works ot the house and would like to future proof as much as possible with cabling etc but not sure how to go about it.

  4. #4
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    i cant take all the credit, it was a new build house so came with the cabinet and all wiring terminated to that point in the utility room!

    There are cat 6 and rg6 points in each room (multiple in some) and the idea is that all of your equipment sits down here and you can wall mount tvs etc without having wires and boxes cluttering the place up.

    as regards what it all does:

    Unifi AP mounted on top of the cabinet - wiresless access point, all my networking kit is ubiquiti, great for the slightly above novice home user and you get a great geeky portal that lets you see everything happening on the work
    HDanywhere 4k HDMI matrix - this feeds the tvs around the house, can take 4 feeds and output to 4 tvs in 4k, currently just has a sky q box and apple tv connected. Sends the signal over cat6
    Ubiquiti 8 port switch with POE | Hue hub - Ubiquiti switch is a managed gigabyte switch that has my other two wireless AP as well as the one mentioned above connected and power by POE as well as ethernet to the Hue hub (lighting) and the Arlo base station (cctv) and the Linksys Nas
    Sky q box (connected to matrix) | ATV 4k (also connected) | Arlo base station | Synology linkstation (Network storage)

    Example of what one of the unifi controller screen looks like


  5. #5
    surely that is just a distribution system, not an AV system, or am I not understanding which bits make the noise?

  6. #6
    Master mindforge's Avatar
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    Thanks, that's really helpful. I already have Google wifi but I reckon having the Cat 5 cabling all over the house will help with wiif strength and enable hard cabling of high demand devices like the TV and amplifier.

  7. #7
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    I have something similar (though less snazzy ;-) ) in our loft when we renovated. No video distribution just cat5.

    BT master socket, Modem, router/access point and switch all live in the loft with 3*nas drives.

    Around 16-20 Ethernet points throughout the house (office * 4, bedrooms * 4, av area * 4...)

    If doing it now I’d use cat 6 and put more into the av area as I maxed out the four drops quickly and had to add a small 5 port switch to cover capacity.

    WiFi is mostly restricted to iPads and phones.

    Add more drops than you think, use dual port faceplates when presenting the ports to increase density.
    Try to think where you might want ports / devices in future and put ports in place.
    You can run standard telephones over cat cable too you’ll need at least one (normally)

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by adrianw View Post
    surely that is just a distribution system, not an AV system, or am I not understanding which bits make the noise?
    sorry yes i suppose it is

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by cyrusir View Post
    sorry yes i suppose it is
    Its still impressive, I do wonder with the demand for bandwidth how long it will be before they invent a different way of doing it.

  10. #10
    Master reggie747's Avatar
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    Lovely......not a lot of space left to get the Stella in though

  11. #11
    Craftsman
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    How does the sky q work. Do you have to watch the same thing on every TV?

    Sent from my SM-G950F using TZ-UK mobile app

  12. #12
    Master
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    Yes that's how the matrix operates

  13. #13
    Craftsman
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    Ok thanks.

    Sent from my YOGA Tablet 2-1050F using TZ-UK mobile app

  14. #14
    Master mindforge's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Captain Morgan View Post
    I have something similar (though less snazzy ;-) ) in our loft when we renovated. No video distribution just cat5.

    BT master socket, Modem, router/access point and switch all live in the loft with 3*nas drives.

    Around 16-20 Ethernet points throughout the house (office * 4, bedrooms * 4, av area * 4...)

    If doing it now I’d use cat 6 and put more into the av area as I maxed out the four drops quickly and had to add a small 5 port switch to cover capacity.

    WiFi is mostly restricted to iPads and phones.

    Add more drops than you think, use dual port faceplates when presenting the ports to increase density.
    Try to think where you might want ports / devices in future and put ports in place.
    You can run standard telephones over cat cable too you’ll need at least one (normally)
    This is useful thanks. What's the difference between cat 6 and cat 5? Do you run the exterior Internet access up to the loft yourself or have to get the ISP to do it? Never clear on where the boundary of responsibility lies and Virgin made a terrible mess tacking it all round my house when I was not there. Was thinking of putting the router etc in the office but the loft is an idea too, asong as you have ventilation and it's not too noisy near a bedroom?

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by mindforge View Post
    This is useful thanks. What's the difference between cat 6 and cat 5? Do you run the exterior Internet access up to the loft yourself or have to get the ISP to do it? Never clear on where the boundary of responsibility lies and Virgin made a terrible mess tacking it all round my house when I was not there. Was thinking of putting the router etc in the office but the loft is an idea too, asong as you have ventilation and it's not too noisy near a bedroom?
    cat 6 will carry higher speeds and its the best ratio of price and performance on cabling currently

    if you have the wiring done you can have your modem connected to wherever the internet comes in and then use the ethenet ports to connect to a router wherever you like

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by cyrusir View Post


    I have no idea what this is, but I think I want one.
    Although no trees were harmed during the creation of this post, a large number of electrons were greatly inconvenienced.

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by mindforge View Post
    This is useful thanks. What's the difference between cat 6 and cat 5? Do you run the exterior Internet access up to the loft yourself or have to get the ISP to do it? Never clear on where the boundary of responsibility lies and Virgin made a terrible mess tacking it all round my house when I was not there. Was thinking of putting the router etc in the office but the loft is an idea too, asong as you have ventilation and it's not too noisy near a bedroom?
    The main difference is speed/future proofing. That said cat 6 is reportedly harder to install / terminate so while I’d suggest it’s the way forward if using a known subbing sparks to install ensure they have the skills / testing Kit to sign off on cat 6, it’s not the same gear as cat 5.

    Our phone / broadband come in via over head line so taking it into the loft for termination is easy for us.

    If you use virgin i’ve Not had experience of them, is it copper or fibre to the home?
    I assume it’s fed via an underground cable?

    As already said if you install structured cabling then you can present the incoming connection almost anywhere and then route it via structured cabling to the central cab.
    The downsides of this are aesthetics unless you can hide the incoming cable and it’s modem / router, and if you have a combined router modem you might want to utilise more than a single network port on it and it might very well be in a poor location for WiFi

    I also like to keep the majority of the networking Kit in one location to ease any trouble shooting and/or future upgrades.

    We have fibre to the home in our flat and even with a separate fibre modem and wireless router it’s still visually messy and needs hiding away.

    Loft heat doesn’t seem to be a problem, the devices, nas, switch, router, modem, heating controls, boiler, etc have been up there for four years and nothing has gone pop.
    We wired the fire/smoke alarm into the loft too as a precaution.

  18. #18
    Master mindforge's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cyrusir View Post
    cat 6 will carry higher speeds and its the best ratio of price and performance on cabling currently

    if you have the wiring done you can have your modem connected to wherever the internet comes in and then use the ethenet ports to connect to a router wherever you like
    Ah right, thanks. Yes I just hate having the modem with all its flashing lights visible. Will need to have all the wiring redone so it's a good opportunity to run the CAT 6 cabling too. I suppose should consider redoing the alarm too especially as doing an extension as well.

  19. #19
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    Found a photo of the flat with fibre, this is ‘hidden’ in the airing cupboard.



    The fibre hardware are the three boxes on the lhs, below the billion router/acces point.

    As you can see it’s still a bit of a lump to hide and the kind of thing that causes domestic agro if left of show after a renovation, no matter how fast your networks is

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Captain Morgan View Post
    Found a photo of the flat with fibre, this is ‘hidden’ in the airing cupboard.



    The fibre hardware are the three boxes on the lhs, below the billion router/acces point.

    As you can see it’s still a bit of a lump to hide and the kind of thing that causes domestic agro if left of show after a renovation, no matter how fast your networks is
    yep i have the two small boxes as well, the one that connects to the modem is an ONT i believe,

    what i did was, replace the providers modem with a ubiquiti security gateway, makes things a little neater.

    also all of that stuff for me is behind the cabinet i have in the pic so very much out of sight

    also tidy cables help, i know its not best pratice but for short distances its ok, so use flat cat 6 cables for all the stuff you can see in different lenghts to have as little slack / loose cabling as i can, and keep the colours unform, also utilise POE whereever possible.
    Last edited by cyrusir; 10th January 2019 at 11:58.

  21. #21
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    I have cat5 distributed around the bottom of the house. For most home use cat5 is probably still fine and is easier to install as it is more flexible. It all comes back into a downstairs cupboard along with the Arlo hub and Hue hub. I’m probably going to add some Ubiquiti Wi-fi soonish.

  22. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by reecie View Post
    I have cat5 distributed around the bottom of the house. For most home use cat5 is probably still fine and is easier to install as it is more flexible. It all comes back into a downstairs cupboard along with the Arlo hub and Hue hub. I’m probably going to add some Ubiquiti Wi-fi soonish.
    This is quite nice!
    I think that home networks allow devices such as smartphones, game consoles, computers, and printers to communicate within your own home. This simplifies tasks like printing, sharing files, and accessing the internet from anywhere. I usually buy equipment at the best store https://qvsupplies.com/ So keep it your mind.
    Last edited by Derrils; 30th January 2020 at 15:45.

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