So I'm moving to a new house, and I want to get it networked and future-proofed as much as reasonably possible.
Please shoot holes in my plans and tell me what I could be doing better/different.
The house is 2 stories, concrete slab/cinder block first floor, wood frame 2nd floor (Imagine a 2 car garage + another 1 car garage side by side with a double-wide mobile home slapped on top and you're not far off). Built in the 70's, no currently installed cabling besides electric and possibly some old land-line phone cabling.
Internet service will be FiOS.
Here's some of the devices I'm moving in with:
- A bunch of PC's (towers and laptops), macbook pro, couple of Mac minis, some iPads and two xbox ones
- NAS box (forget the brand name, but it holds 2 HDD's)
- A big "smart" TV (living room)
- Couple of smaller HDMI TV's for bedroom and garage
- Set of 5 surround speakers and subwoofer (wired, not wireless)
- Internet capable (airplay, internet radio) HDMI receiver with two audio zones. Can be controlled via smartphone app.
- Asus RT-N16 wireless router runing DD-WRT https://www.amazon.com/RT-N16-Wireless-N-Maximum-Performance-single/dp/B00387G6R8
- I have a box with literally a hundred ethernet patch cables between ~6" and 10' long.
Stuff I want to do:
- At least one RJ45 jack supporting gigabit ethernet per wall in every 2nd floor room, except the bathroom and possibly the kitchen, and one per wall in the garages (yes, I will have wireless via the Asus router, but I want heavy duty/steady/interference resistant bandwidth too)
- Set up one smaller bedroom as a home office - most of the computers and NAS will go in there
- Stream video from the office to the living room which will have big TV/HDMI receiver/surround sound (I generally don't watch/pay for broadcast TV. Entertainment is usually either Netflix or downloaded video in mkv/avi formats saved to PC or NAS).
- xbox in living room.
- Stream video from the office to master bedroom TV.
- another xbox also in master bedroom.
- Stream video from the office to the large garage TV. Garage space is going to be mainly vehicle parking/maintenance with a gym corner and a firearms/reloading corner.
- Have a set of speakers (just stereo, not surround) and subwoofer in the garage using the 2nd audio zone from the living room receiver
- Have a set of IP cameras (3 outdoor, 2 indoor) for security using POE (power over ethernet) connected to a dedicated PC running Blue Iris software for monitoring/recording/alerts
Stuff I think I need to get:
- IP cameras - right now I'm looking at Amcrest POE cameras (I *don't* want wireless cams, and I like POE because it only requires one cable per camera and no wall warts) like these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01F7WHH2Y/ref=ox_sc_act_title_5?smid=AM1AKWRN957PC&psc=1
- A gigabit ethernet switch. I'm thinking 24 ports, and it would be nice if it supplied/auto-detected POE when needed, but I'm not opposed to using a separate POE power injector if needed. Any recommendations? Where should I locate the switch and terminate all the Cat 5e runs - close to where FiOS comes into the house?
- A big spool of Cat 5e cable. Any suggestions on where to buy?
- RJ45 jack wall plates. Is there such a thing as a combination power outlet/rj45 jack wall plate?
Questions:
- How should I connect all the Cat 5e cables terminating at the switch? Punch down block with patch cables, or just finish the ends with RJ45 and plug into the switch?
- How should I hook up garage speakers to upstairs audio receiver? Just run some speaker/subwoofer wire up to the living room?
- I have zero experience fishing/running cables inside/outside a house. Should I even attempt to do this on my own, or just go straight to looking for an electrician?
Anything else "cool" I could be doing with what I have that I should be looking at?