When it comes to Smart Homes, or any other network of devices, physical wires are always the best way to go if you can use them. Even though a lot of IoT and Smart Home companies push wireless tech, most recommended only going wireless if it is too expensive or to difficult for wires.

Basically older houses or apartments can not have more wires installed without ripping out the walls, so they use WiFi or Z-Wave to connect things. Not to say that wireless tech is bad, but it often uses more power, is susceptible to signal interference, and could pose a security risk. If you are building a new house or plan to rip out all of the walls anyway, be sure to run plenty of wire to each room to make sure you can install whatever tech you will need later. So we will be running lots of wire because this is a new house.

No Soldering Options

Jumper wires come in a lot of lengths and you can get a bunch to avoid having to solder things together. Be sure to keep things color coded because it can be hard to keep track of all those wires. You will need the following types if you want to go that rout.

To connect any wires that need to be cut and connected, these terminal blocks should do the job.

Soldering your own wires

I do recommend getting a set of color coded Stranded Core wire as this will make it easy to keep track of what wire is connected to what device.

Since some of the devices use more than just two wires to connect, like servos and NeoPixels, I like to use a small ribbon cable like the following two.

You will also want to have some Heat Shrink tubing on hand to be sure that you do not get a short circuit.

All the other stuff

I find it useful to have a few Break-apart Male Header strips on hand to make some quick connectors by soldering wired to the top of them.

 

You will also want a good wire stripper and a good soldering iron.

So that is it and we are ready to start wiring things together.