Hi,

First time poster here, I've used the forum a bit for advice over the years.

I need some advice on what hardware to buy to set up my new home. Here's my situation:

House is single level relatively small 100m2. I've had the house wired with ethernet cables, there are 8 wall jackets in total going into a laundry cupboard where I plan to host all the equipment. There will be a fibre connection with skinny and I currently have their stock router. The WIFI coverage on the router probably won't reach the bedroom or office to a good strength if it was in the laundry cupboard.

I am a beginner at networking and don't know too much about how to configure stuff, but can follow guides. I am a builder, so have enough skills to do the wiring and hardware installations. 

- I have a few smart home hubs such as phillips hue and sureflap. 

- I want to install security cameras, preferable wired POE and stored locally. Was looking into the other ones too arlo, eufy etc. 

- Ideally I want to learn how to use home assistant and add some sensors to doors windows and other home automation stuff.

- We have a home office, the wife works there 3 days a week. I use the home office for my building business in the evenings, I can buy and write off most of the networking equipment on my business, although I still don't want to spend a fortune on this stuff.

I was looking at a ubiquiti dream machine pro setup, the ease of use is a good factor but I didn't like their cameras, they are expensive and the options are limited.

So basic questions:

- What would be a good router, switch access point combo to have in my network cupboard as an alternatives to ubiquiti? I want it simple enough to set up but I have IT friends that could help. The setup would have one or two access points in the office and the somewhere else.

- I want to set up a couple different networks for the IoT stuff, andriod TV box. I am worried about privacy and not too keen on cloud storage

- What is a good camera system that runs on POE that I could have an NVR with that I can view the feeds remotely?

- If/when I start playing about with home assistant stuff would this gear scale ok with that?

I have a blank canvas here, how would you set this up if you were me?

Cheers,

Richard