Investing In Your Home with Smart Home Technology
These days home values aren’t just dipping, they’re skydiving. One way that you can preserve the value of your home in a downward trending market is to install smart home networking technology that new buyers can just plug into when they move in. CAT5 wire is the primary mode of receiving information, entertainment and communication and will continue to be so going forward into the new millennium.
What is CAT5 wire? Category 5 wire is 4 pairs, for a total of 8 wires. They are enclosed inside an unshielded sheath. Each pair of wires is twisted throughout their length. The twist provides a higher immunity to noise and crosstalk compared to untwisted wire pairs. When rewiring a home, separate runs should be made for telephones and an in-home LAN, or Local Area Network. You may even want to take this a step further and do another separate run for the home theater system, so that signals are completely undiluted by each other.
Retrofitting your home with CAT5 would be of particular interest if you are in an area where high tech jobs are commonplace, as communication and computer professionals are more likely to see the value in such a system. A web designer operating out of a home office may prefer a CAT5 network over a wireless network, for example.
That isn’t to say that regular citizens won’t see the value in such a system. All you need to do to explain this is that the home is pre-wired for the latest technology in computer networking, telephony and home theater, and most non-tech types will be sold. In addition, CAT5 allows the installation networking of “smart” appliances like refrigerators that tell you when you need milk, or fridges that allow you to turn down their settings when you aren’t at home from your computer at work. In addition, with a CAT5 system you incorporate telephone and computer jacks into the same wall system, allowing for networking in each room of the house.
While fiber optic cables are being touted as the cable of the future, the reality is that their cost and the available technologies limit their “on-the-ground” implementation to the point where we won’t really see them as a solution of choice for at least another decade. CAT5 is the solution for the people who want their future whole-home automation system right now.
If you’re considering investing in your home by integrating CAT5 or smart home technology, contact the home automation experts at Simple Solutions Digital Entertainment, so they can walk you through the process from start to finish.
Posted on April 9th, 2009
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