Electronics overview

As mentioned in the 'since money is an object' post here is an overview of the dream house electronics vision. Here we go.

• Wired Network: One of the standard features of Charis Homes is phone lines to almost every room. Since we no longer have a landline we've changed that from standard phone lines to CAT6 ethernet cable. This means hard-wired Gigabit speeds in most rooms. All these cables will come together in 2 main switches (supporting power-over-ethernet) in the basement.
• Wireless Network: We're using a 3-pack of Wireless Access Points, one on each floor connected through the before mentioned ethernet using the same cable for power as well (power-over-ethernet). This will give a generous wireless coverage throughout the house on every floor. 
• Internet: Not sure yet if we'll stay with TimeWarnerCable or if we'll switch to AT&T U-Verse. In any case the signal will be routed to a hardware firewall before being distributed to the two switches.
• TV signal: More than likely we'll retain DirecTV. My wife is an avid Football fan from Minnesota so that kind of settles that part. We'll use their Whole-House DVR function (wired) and their Nomad device for wireless signal distribution. Using the Nomad allowed us to save some money on not cabling the 2nd floor. 
• Digital Storage: With our digital camera being one of the heaviest used devices in our household we have to make sure we got some good storage and retrieval for those digital photo albums. We'll be using a Home Server approach with Network-accessible storage. Add some (non-cloud) backup goodies due to the shear amount of pictures we take to keep the FUBARs away.
• Home Automation: See first line... 'money is an object'... so, integrated home automation is out.
• Alarm system: Yup... that definitely IS in the budget... ;-)

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