I’m about to start building and I listed out all 128 runs of cable – highlights:

• I’m not doing speaker runs. Maybe I’ll regret this, but voice assistants and whole-home audio just isn’t my family’s jam.
• Every place I put an outlet, pull two runs
• Just about every wall has a jack, minimum two per room
• Dual runs for security cameras to at least all four corners of the house; I also have several interior cameras as well
• Smurf tube
• Sensors for windows & doors, even interior doors
• Runs for access points
• Runs for hardwired sensors
• Runs to utilities (water shut off, power monitoring, water heater, even behind the washing machine)
• Runs for water leak detection
• A lot of the locations I’m pull cat to are NOT for ethernet, not at the outset anyway. My philosophy is that maybe someday down the line there would be some novel reason to have an ESP32 at the end of the run for a door sensor – until that time, though, wire is wire and I can just use the ethernet cord for a dumb reed switch loop, no big deal.

And here it is in a visual drops location format

I’m also building a new home soon and plan to run so much ethernet (Cat6A) I’m going to need more patch panels than you can buy in a bundle.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hPYCpzZD_SbznEdpzGgHPffenE-BOR1PEJNOphP3o-c/edit?usp=sharing

Over 100 runs on that list for a 3/2/Office house. The overall themes are:

• 4 runs to the TV nook
• double runs to at least two jacks in every room
• double runs to every corner of the home exterior (poe cameras)
• runs to walls in the garage
• runs to every door and window opening (either remote ESP devices with POE power, or to just use the cable as a dumb carrier for contact sensors)
• runs to every room for “sensing” (presence, ir, mmwave, temp, lux, etc) device
• several runs around the house for WiFi mesh coverage
• runs to the home entrance doors for “doorbell cameras” (or the equivalent) – again, potentially just as dry contact wires too
• runs to various monitoring points (water heater, HVAC, electrical panels, and water meter even!)

And, as other’s have mentioned, conduit/smurftube galore. In a new build, when you have the chance, it’s an absolute no-brainer to run all of this while the walls are off and insulation is not interfering. I’m trying to have as few things wireless as possible because wires are simply faster, more reliable, and easier to troubleshoot.

I, personally, will not go the “switch in wall” route as that adds a bandwidth bottlenecks and creates extra stuff to manage all over the house. Plus devices that will eventually fail you’ve got to pull out of the wall now.