Reviving this old thread and going back to the point made by the OP.

I have done a trial with various smart devices in my current house prior to starting my new build, so that I understood it and could decide what I wanted to do in the new house. I have used Sonof relays and movement detectors, smart bulbs, smart plugs all controlled by  Home Assistant running on a Pi and Zigbee dongle. Everything works great. Simple to set up

 

So what about the wiring on the newbuild? Based on current experience I have decided as follows :

1) traditional lighting wiring with all switches daisy chained

2) No double switching in halls and stairs, there is no need with automation

3) Live and neutral taken to every light switch

4) Deep plastic backbox (so relay can be put behind, and good reception of Zigbee wifi

 

All of this can be put in and used as normal, plus reverted to normal wiring without any problem.

 

Then to make it smart put a zigbee relay behind every switch, then the relay can be operated via the switch as normal, or automated and programmed using HA and whatever sensors you want. Having a Neutral available makes the relay capable of being a  "router" i.e the more of these you have forming a good mesh the better the reception and communication through the Zigbee network.

 

So having decided on that I cannot see the benefit of wiring all switches back to a central point in the plant room? Can someone explain why that may be better?

Taking switches and lights back to a central point lets you add automation  in one location and if it fails, it’s easy to then join cabling together and bypass automation.

 

if I had the space I would do that.

 

3core and earth to switch so it has a feed, switch wire and neutral, and 3 core at lights for same reason.

 

 

OK thanks. However I think I will go with traditional wiring and distributed automation. It takes 2 min to put a relay behind a switch, and another 2 min to take it out and revert to trad if you want to. Can't see a problem with walking round the house to do this.