Smart Homes & Automation

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Im about to begin a journey into home automation and explore some "smart" technologies on the market.
I wanted some general feedback on any pitfall's anyone has come across or any interesting comparisons between thing's such as instant on LED lights vs dimmable's.

The house is in need of a full rewire so every room is going to get wrecked and need to be redecorated from the ground up.
I have been advised to make sure that every wall socket contains a neutral wire despite many lights and appliances in the UK not requiring it, many smart switches dimmers and keypads will require it.

The current plan is to distribute Cat5e and Coax connectors to every room but we have the option of adding fiber optic cables also, it has no current residential use but should I be aware of anything looming that's going to make me regret not spending to get it done now?
We have 3 main PC's, a couple of sumvison cyclones and various console's throughout the house atm.

The lighting is planned to be LED strips hidden in a roof recess in some rooms, with wall lights and roof mounts everywhere else, we had only planned 3 motion triggered zones: bathroom, kitchen and rear garden exit.
With the recess lighting being used as low light or mood, would dimmable's have any place or advantage, my reasoning is when I want a main light on I think I'd want it ON.

We haven't heard enough info back from vendor's about temp. control and the auto-thermostat's yet so I won't go into that to much.

The last area we are considering is security, we know there are insurance discount etc available if we switch to certain types of smoke alarms and main alarm set-ups but I have extreme reservations about trusting the "smart" physical locking systems available,
I don't trust always having my phone so am looking into fob based Rfid systems rather than app controlled systems, Does anyone have a good system installed or have any recommendations?

Are there any additional systems coming to market that are genuinely useful but not quite ready that I could plan for?

As always your input and feedback will be appreciated

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From what i have been working on zigbee and z-wave have been the primary protocols that have been the easiest to deal with. Try to stay away from IP enabled stuff because then you get stuck in the endless "does this support that?" headache.

There a few hubs to look at:
Homeseer: (if you want to own everything but the hardest to set up.)

Samsung Smarthings: (local devices are not on the cloud but can connect to other IP devices and has a great hacker
community)

Logitech Harmony Home: Amazing for just AV equipment has a zigbee/z-wave attachment but it can be pretty spotty it works with smartthing so you can use that for zigbee/zwave and use Harmony for AV and home theater.)

Nest: Have Google's back that could be a plus or minus. Limited compatible devices. Nice aesthetics.)

Quirky's Wink: went bankrupt recently so no recommendation there.

Mi Case Verde: I honestly don't know much about that one.

Control4 and Creston: These guys have been doing HA for a long but are crazy expensive ($5000) and require a professional install

Amazon Echo: No control on it's own but can be used to voice control much of the equipment listed here. Not having to pull out a phone control stuff is great. But if you are doing true HA, much of the devices will be automated (sensor controlled) or scheduled

Almond Plus routers: Router and HA control in one device is nice but very lacking in user experience.

Aeon Labs, Centralia, and GE all make nice switches, plugs, and sensors that are of equal quality just go with what ever is cheapest.

Phillips Hue is bar none the best for RGB lighting but it does come at a price premium.

If you can't get wiring to a lamp or plug I would look at GE's and Cree's Zigbee bulbs both are great just go with who ever is cheaper.

Kiddie and First Alert both make connect smoke CO detectors that talk over Z-Wave and Zigbee (for back up detection)

IP cameras: TP Link and Foscam both make nice cameras at a good price. You could set up a FreeNAS server to act as a DVR or pick up a Synology NAS if that is too much hassle. That same NAS can also act as a TV DVR and media server.

Remember to keep IP cameras on you local network to prevent snooper. You could check video via the DVR outside the network

Locks and Alarms: go with a professional installer. Home automation is still very young for the general market and not all the bugs have been ironed out.

Fiber would be total overkill for consumer equipment. Wireless AC is really good Ubquiti has realeased a new affordable range of AC access points and repeaters. You could go with either an Edge router of a cheap PFsense Box to run the network.

This is just a brief overview feel free to ask questions.

PS. Connected Plugs/outlets are amazing for automated coffee btw :)

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Thanks for your input, still waiting on a few things before we move forward, il update when I get a little further