Whaaaat… How did I miss this thread? Home automation is probably more of my life than coffee!
Some great advice above. I think the best comment is make your house less attractive than your neighbours. If they know you have a safe, they are still coming in whatever you do. Forget internal cameras, they only know about those once in. I think best bet is external cameras, either on front door bell, or round the side and back. If someone looks over my gate they can see 2, with red IR lights at night.
Wifi and routers agree that Unifi is the way to go. Best is separate cable modem from router (USG) and separate wifi access points. I have multiple internal and the external one as well. All solid.
Wouldn’t recommend their cameras as needs their system unless you are really spending money on their high end gear. NAS and any 3rd party camera probably as good and cheaper or go with Apple HomeKit ones but you don’t get 24/7 recording there.
Home automation - Loxone is great if doing whole house rewire, but not the easiest to build out slowly. I use Indigo which is a Mac based software, is local only (but with external secure connection if required) that runs my lights (via z-wave modules behind the switches) so no changing bulbs or switches and still works if someone uses a switch, unlike Hue bulbs
Also does my TV, alarm, heating, Sonos (Sonos comes on playing ACDC full volume throughout the house if alarm goes off!), cameras, cable tv, basically anything electrical in my house and links all to HomeKit and Siri and Alexa. Built up slowly over a few years. Much much easier to use than the free raspberry pi systems but more expensive to buy, and needs always on Mac. Hubitat which I also use seems a cheaper easier system to setup but reasonably configurable and extendable.
If I had the money and was doing rewire then Loxone looks good. Be careful of things like Control4 etc as you don’t want to have to pay hundreds to company to add a new light or change logic.
Also be aware of what you want. Lots of companies will provide connected houses, ie one app on phone controls lights and blinds and alarm. But do you want to pull phone out to turn on a light or open a blind. You likely either want voice control or physical switches (and ability to easily change their logic) or you want smart. Smart requires some great logic and will be changed over time, again you don’t want to pay someone to do that. I don’t think I have touched my kitchen light switch in years. Motion and time controlled and depends on outside light levels outside, ie they come on if dark clouds during day.