New house build, looking for suggestions

Building a new house and getting to put in stuff right from the get got. I have a couple of areas that I want to automate/monitor and I’m hoping for suggestions.

  1. Heating/Cooling - Which Thermostat? I’m looking for multi room monitoring as my wife and I will be in different parts of the house away from where the thermostat itself sits (Nest always goes into away mode on us now). The EcoBee 3 with remote sensors looks nice but it doesn’t play well with SmartThings correct? If I go with smart vents (like the Keens) would I even need to worry about it if they have the sensors and interface with the thermostat directly?

  2. Locks - Is there a monitor only deadbolt? I don’t want to be able to remotely unlock/lock, just monitor it.

Ecobee works great with both the basic “official” integration, and a more fully-featured community integration. Official Ecobee 3 Integration

There aren’t any deadbolts out there that I am aware of that report state without control. However, this would be pretty easy to DIY, especially in new construction. Ask your electrician to wire a momentary button into the deadbolt housing such that when the plunger is extended, it depresses the button. Then run low-voltage wires from the switch to a MIMOLite (or similar).

I believe Pella makes a system of doors that will report lock status, but those doors only work with the Pella hub.

Make sure your electrician wires power to the switch box, not the outlet or light box.

Basically, you do NOT want switch loops.

When wiring 3-way, insist that they run standard 14/3 wire instead of getting cute with just running the travelers, or something.

Todd