I recently moved and took everything with me. This included replacing z-wave light switches and outlets with normal ones. I swapped everything out before we listed the house. The reality is that most people will just be confused by this sort of stuff and you aren’t going to get any extra money when you sell your house. It’s a pain, but assuming you don’t move very often it’s worth it. Now I have all the things in my new house and it’s setup just the way I like.
The not adding value to the house bit is important. Nobody really knows about or cares enough about home automation to justify an added expense on the cost of the home. Maybe this will change when the "iPhone of home automation" finally comes out. Also Z-wave stuff is EXPENSIVE! so if it's not going to up the value of the house then I'm basically giving that stuff away for free.
The not adding value to the house bit is important. Nobody really knows about or cares enough about home automation to justify an added expense on the cost of the home.
I'd actually go further. I do care about home automation, because it is almost certainly a negative and possibly a deal-breaker for me to put any offer in to buy a place.
If it has anything installed that has any form of off-site access or any dependency on a remote service then I am going to require the existing owner to remove it and make good at their own expense as a condition of any offer (other than possibly a suitably approved alarm system with clearly detailed monitoring arrangements and contacts).
Likewise if there is anything installed that relies on any sort of sensors or "smart" control systems, I am going to require credible written guarantees about the security, privacy, safety and longevity of that system, or far more likely it is again going to have to be removed and made good at the current owner's expense as a condition.
The interesting legacy corollary here is that it's completely bog standard for home security systems to be left in place when a house is sold.
I say this because the systems that ADT, etc sell these days are largely made up of white labeled COTS Z-Wave sensors with the security panel just being a hub and interface to the Z-Wave network.
The house I moved into this past year is covered by sensors for an old ADT system that are useless to me, and I've been slowly removing them and replacing them with equivalent Z-Wave e.g., door and motion sensors as I get to it. Whenever I move, I'll take the hub with me. Any sensors that get left behind would be almost entirely equivalent to an old security system being left in the house except for the fact that they'd be pairable with any system the new owner decides to put in place since they're actually standards based.
Most whitelabel home automation stuff runs on the Z-Wave protocol.
Zigbee is also fairly popular for some applications; it's what e.g., Philips Hue runs on.
Devices using either of these will generally pair with any hub with the appropriate radios like Smart Things.
There's additionally a class of home automation stuff that runs over WiFi; they more generally have proprietary communication protocols and I personally avoid them for the most part.
Just as well, if you plan to sign up with ADT, they insist upon new equipment. I just went through this. We bought our house in February. ADT was sending crap almost daily so I called to see what they were offering. They absolutely would not use the 3-year old equipment in the house. Installation would come with new equipment. I didn't care either way, but thought that was notable.
No matter; I wasn't interested, and I was happy to get rid of all the their signs and stickers.
Yeah, it's the reason I just went straight to tearing them all out. There is literally nothing ADT's whitelabeled sensors do that standard Z-Wave devices can't at a third the price -- or less! -- without tying me to any specific security company. If I decide to move to any other HA system, I just replace the hub and pair my existing devices back up.
In fact, ADT's latest move seems to be piggybacking on Smart Things for HA, but... since I already have Smart Things what do I really need ADT for?
Mostly, I don't care about home automation. I don't care so much about the previous owner removing the components, because I'm sure that I can do it when I move in. Anything that can be set up for remote access is at least being disconnected, if not removed entirely.
Especially things like those. If you can give me evidence they are properly set up, working, and compliant with all applicable advice and regulations, that's great, I'll be happy to have them. Otherwise, get rid of them, and I'll get my own properly fitted by a suitably qualified professional, thanks. Those things save lives, and I'm not going to cut corners to save a few bucks, only to find that your hack job installer didn't connect them to repeat alarms properly throughout the building, or you used some trendy junk that doesn't actually work reliably if the power goes out, Internet is down, or some other dumb thing that should have nothing at all to do with safety systems ever.
As a home buyer, why is it a negative? It seems like it would represent such a small % of the purchase price and could be easily included in the negotiation as needing to be removed by the owner before you move in.
Yeah I agree. But I still get a negative psychological reaction since I dislike any and all smarthome products, which colors my impression of the property. Illogical I know, but it's a reality for me and other home buyers / home sellers.
It's like staging a home right? None of this furniture comes with the house but how it's staged absolutely influences your impression of the home.
I get that psychological aspect - it makes you think the current owners have poor judgment, and so what else did they mess up? That's also why you should do simple maintenance and cleaning when trying to sell a house, because if a person neglected to eg rake the leaves, who knows what else was necessary which they didn't do.
I would consider it to devalue the home. I don't ever want that kind of thing in my house but, even if I did, I'm not going to trust anyone to properly transfer whatever cloud access they have to things in my home, so it will all have to be removed anyway.
Who said anything about the cloud? I know what you mean though; if I had to use a cloud service, I definitely wouldn't want it in my house. In my experience it's easier to set this stuff up without the crummy proprietary cloud services anyway.
If your house uses good standard local communication protocols, like Z-Wave, ZigBee, or Insteon, you can take your cloud devices, and a new owner can just buy a new hub device with their own cloud account and connect the devices to it. Doesn't matter what the other person has in their account at that juncture.
That being said, if I was ever to leave home automation hardware behind, it'd be a "if you want to pay x on top of the already agreed upon price for the property, I'll leave it", where x is the cost for me to just buy new modules for my new place.
> you can take your cloud devices, and a new owner can just buy a new hub device with their own cloud account and connect the devices to it.
That sounds like a pain in the ass.
> if I was ever to leave home automation hardware behind, it'd be a "if you want to pay x on top of the already agreed upon price for the property, I'll leave it
I don't want to buy new crap to deal with the crap you left behind. I'd argue that you ought to pay me for dealing with some arbitrary hardware that I've now inherited. This is the equivalent of leaving some finicky boiler system whose spare parts can only be ordered from a single factory in Germany.
I don't want to buy new crap to deal with the crap you left behind. I'd argue that you ought to pay me for dealing with some arbitrary hardware that I've now inherited. This is the equivalent of leaving some finicky boiler system whose spare parts can only be ordered from a single factory in Germany.
In context they are also more or less offering to remove it for free. I expect that includes putting conventional fixtures in (depending on the terms of the sale, but why bother trying to insist that the house doesn't come with light switches).
Indeed, an option like that would be purely: If you're going to want these, I can save myself the effort of swapping them if you want to buy them off me. Otherwise, I'll either reinstall the original equipment or buy new equipment. (New dumb light switches for my old condo cost me $1.95 a pop.)
At my old condo, one thing I left as a bit of a 'gift', was a extremely solid dual-arm TV wall mount. It was cheap for me to repurchase for my new place, and then they don't have the risk of screwing into the studs near but not in the holes I had mounted mine or such concerns that might weaken their own mount. I had all the hardware and instructions, which I left with it. This might've been a less handy choice had either the condo been large enough for other places for the TV to make sense or be appealing, or if the TV mount I had installed wasn't sturdy enough to support all possible TVs one might be bringing in.
Where I live the general rule is anything that was attached is considered part of the home you're buying/selling. If you don't want the light switches and thermostat being sold they should be removed and replaced before you show the home.
What is or is not included in the home sale should be explicitly listed in the property listing. Many houses are shown with contents that will be removed before sale, so when you buy a house, if there's something you're expecting to get as part of it, you should explicitly document it in your offer terms.
There are always going to be local norms and laws though. Where I live and recently bought a home the default is that anything bolted/screwed down is part of the home you're buying. Furniture, art, etc is not included. Most sellers will include the major kitchen appliances, washers and dryers are on a case by case basis. When I bought, the sellers wanted to keep some shelving and curtain rods and this (along with the major appliances) was explicitly covered in the contract.
>> That being said, if I was ever to leave home automation hardware behind, it'd be a "if you want to pay x on top of the already agreed upon price for the property, I'll leave it", where x is the cost for me to just buy new modules for my new place.
If you live in any major urban center that request would likely get laughed at since the value of your depreciated hardware likely wouldn't even count as a rounding error on the purchase price. Some buyers might even want a discount on your selling price because of the extra work they'd have to do to get rid of the gear.
I think a similar effect has been why power generation and efficiency systems (solar, "geothermal" heating/cooling) have been slow to catch on—for every buyer who sees them as a nice thing there's another who's turned off by them, and another who doesn't care enough to pay much extra. And even the ones who think they're good probably won't pay the pro-rated cost of putting it in, so you're still losing some money. Kinda like having a pool. Also why builders don't usually put that stuff in when it'd be easiest and cheapest, I think. Even at those lower costs they can't make the money back when they sell.
So they're a good idea if you think it's very likely you'll stay in a house 15+ years, but not so much otherwise.
Where I live geothermo heating/cooling is listed in the ads for some houses. I recall when we were looking the realtor made sure we knew which houses had geothermo. We ended up with a regular air source heat pump, but geothermo is recognized as a selling point at least even if it doens't add value.
This sort of thing happens with used cars. If it's all stock, the value is general higher than if the car has been modified with various aftermarket parts. I believe the main reason is that a stock vehicle is less of an unknown when it comes to repairs and maintenance.
stuff like engine chipping puts loads of extra stress on whole engine/drivetrain/clutch setup that original car was not designed for. There are really no free lunches out there.
Even aesthetical changes are a big warning - this one has been somehow tampered with, and you have no clue what was changed and for what reason.
For example I bought some older BMW few years back. When i went for some complete checkup after cca 2 years, mechanic told me that car has been lowered a bit and brakes are some lightweight version. It was my first car and I didn't notice, and effin' dealer didn't mention it. All good but - lowered car has issue in places like underground parkings, where road is steep and sometimes I hit the bottom of the car when road bends too much. So because some idiot previous owner wanting to squeeze a bit extra driveability out of a diesel car (although amazing diesel it is), I now have these crappy consequences and have to drive carefully like with some ferrari. I've hit the bottom in various situations maybe 20x so far, maybe one day it will break something crucial and I will be left in some nasty situation with broken car.
Yeah, you want untampered (more) predictable stock cars.
We may be listing ours soon, and if we do I'm even swapping the LED bulbs for whatever's cheapest at the store. They're only about a year old and the house will sell for zero more dollars if I leave them up.
Heh, it'll be less than 1% of the total time I spend doing touch-ups and such. Maybe three minutes to save, yeah, $50-75. A tiny extra amount of effort on the actual packing and move, but time saved buying new bulbs when the ones in the next house start burning out makes up for that. Besides, I've got most of 'em in in-socket splitters (makes one bulb socked into two) in crappy basement fixtures which I'm pretty sure will make an inspector look twice, so probably worth taking down ahead of time anyway.
Is leaving lights in the house you sell an American thing? Unless it's built in lights like spots, all the bulbs and even fixtures usually move with the person where I'm from (the Netherlands).
Incandescent bulbs here are so cheap (and fragile, especially if they're used) they're definitely not worth bothering with, and they're still really common. Even CFLs are really cheap now, and don't travel as well (or last as long) as LEDs. Light fixtures would almost never go—either they're $20 pieces of crap that aren't worth unwiring (then wiring back up at the new place), or they're nice enough and suited specifically enough to the space that the new buyers definitely want them to stay. If you wanted to keep one you'd have to take it down before listing, and replace it with something else.
Lights in light fixtures usually stay, while lights in lamps go. I don't know anyone who removes the lights from overhead fixtures, ceiling fans, etc. In the house I just moved into, all of those lights were there, even if the light switches were not.
the fixtures are wired in, and thus legally part of then house. You need to add additional language in the paperwork if you want to take them. If you want to take one with you your realtor will probably advise you to replace it before you list the house. Of course as other have pointed out, fixtures are generally either generic, or specific to the room they are in: in either case it doesn't make sense to take them with you even if you can.
Technically you can take the stove, fridge, washer, dryer, window coverings; but almost nobody does. The buyers realtor will automatically put a clause in the contract that they stay. It saves everybody the effort and cost of moving them, and generally the rest of the room matches them and not the new house. Sometimes this isn't done but that is rare.
Light bulbs are not in the contract, but they aren't worth the bother to remove.
I've never moved anywhere that I can remember already having a fridge, washer, or dryer. We've always taken ours with us. They seem like more personal appliances to me, anyhow. And in my current place, all the window coverings were removed before the home was shown. I plan on leaving mine in when I eventually sell. They were custom-cut anyhow; I suspect that the old ones were removed because they were damaged.
Not just to Americans. I'm an expat in the Netherlands and interact with lots of people who came here from various different countries. It's bizarre to everyone.
Seems like there are two options. (1) You can do it the Dutch way, i.e. every time someone moves they'll have to take their floors out. Those floors often won't fit into your new apartment, so you're just creating lots of waste. Not to mention all the effort associated with it. You will have to remove the floors, but also the person moving into your place will have had to remove the floors from their old place. (2) You leave the floors in when you move out. Then the new tenant/owner can decide whether to keep them or not. In the worst case, both new and old inhabitant will still decide to remove the floors. In the best case, no one will have to do anything and no waste is created.
So what could possibly be gained from the first way of doing things? Genuinely curious if someone knows the reasoning behind this.
Ripping up floors is an actual thing there?? I assumed the original poster was speaking metaphorically about how much gets taken out. I wonder how that practice got started. It's almost impossible to reuse floors.
>Ripping up floors is an actual thing there?? I assumed the original poster was speaking metaphorically about how much gets taken out.
Haha I was not...people literally take the floor laminates with them when they leave, if not to reuse them but out of some sense of ownership I don't fully grasp.
Apartments are rented in a few ways: fully furnished (incl. floors and all the furnishings and even kitchen stuff) which is aimed at expats who make lots of money and people who are living short term; partially furnished (maybe including floors and some appliances or fittings, for which you'll pay a regulated monthly fee), or bare, which is as it suggests without fittings and without floor coverings. The latter is cheapest and most common I think.
I've heard that sometimes you can make a deal with the leaving tenants if you'd like to keep their existing floors (for a price, of course!). People here seem rather adept and used to installing the laminate themselves, and they also seem to like the idea that you can put down whichever floor covering you like best.
It must be a good business to sell floor laminate...
Common enough here in the Netherlands if you're buying a house. Expensive or heirloom fixtures may have been replaced with cheap IKEA fixtures, but houses generally don't show up on the market without lighting and a working thermostat.
In the UK part of the sale process is agreeing which "fixtures and fittings" are part of the sale. There will generally be a form in the mountains of paperwork involved in a house purchase.
Most sellers will leave anything fixed to the building like lights, sinks, toilets, doors, door handles, sockets, fitted carpets, fitted kitchen appliances, plants that are buried in the garden, fires and fireplaces, television aerials, boilers and radiators, built-in cupboards, permanently installed mirrors, and so on.
Things that aren't fixed in quite the same way have different conventions. For example paintings, light shades, freestanding lamps, rugs, curtains, plants in freestanding tubs, and freestanding appliances are often taken by the seller.
It's always possible to negotiate, of course; if the buyer and seller agree on something different, that's perfectly legal. And there are horror stories of overly trusting buyers discovering the seller has removed the turf from the lawn, and things like that.
The correct answer here RE "an American thing" is "whatever is written into the contract as 'conveying' with the house."
If you say "fixtures stay in the house" then they stay. If not, no obligation to leave them. Typically, however, these clauses deal primarily with appliances and other larger items (TVs, hot tubs, etc)
In my experience people don't think to bring the bulbs with them, written or otherwise.
That's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that spending money and effort replacing good bulbs with not-so-good ones is a negative-sum action for the system of you+the new owner. Leaving them in is zero-sum. I left all the LEDs I put in my last apartment when I moved.
I added z-wave switches to my house, but honestly they function enough like normal switches that I would just leave them if I sold the house (but take the controller with me). I never used any cloud services though.
Is this really a huge problem? How is this any different then, say, disconnecting your utilities? What's the big deal with factory resetting everything you're leaving behind?
The garage door opener works when you push a button. The furnace works when you change the little numbers on the thermostat. If it doesn't work, you call a garage door or HVAC company and they fix it. I think most people are barely aware that these things even have manuals, let alone actually sit down and read them.
No, that's how you use them. We I moved into my house I spent a good week or more tracing out where vents, pipes, and wires went. I spent time learning the parts of the furnace and built in humidifier and the different switches and knobs on them and what they do and how they do what they do. I'm no expert, buts it's helped several times already to have such an understanding.
> The garage door opener works when you push a button.
What button? I've got a detached garage, so it doesn't make sense to have a button inside. And when the previous residents were (apparently) evicted, they took various keys, remotes, etc with them. I most certainly had to buy a remote and find my garage door opener's manual to get it working. Damned if I was going to pay a garage door repairman to come out and hit a few buttons for me.
You say it's covered; I disagree, which is why I responded. HVAC? Maybe; it's sometimes hooked into the gas lines, with wiring through the walls and such. I feel like it's condescending to assume that most people would be unwilling or unable to pair a remote with a garage door opener, though.
Sure. I'm just describing what I've observed. If you don't think it's correct, that's fair. I'm just pointing out that whether or not it's condescending is a completely different question. I'll happily admit that I have a really bad attitude toward the general population's technical literacy or willingness to RTFM.
I was looking at an open house for sale earlier this year and the button to open the (detached) garage was under the edge of the counter in the kitchen like some sort of silent alarm panic switch.
This is why I set a few "ground rules" before I started adding home automation stuff to my house.
1. Everything must be reversible, preferably within a short period of time. If I replace the doorbell or locks with smart ones, I keep the old ones in storage. If I replace light switches, I make sure to document the way the wiring worked before I touched it, and keep everything so I can put it back if/when I move. I had a house with 14 light switches, 2 door locks, a garage door opener, 3 cameras, 7 door and window sensors, like 4 or 5 outlet controllers, and a thermostat all upgraded to "smart devices" in my house, and it took me about 5 hours to set everything back to the way it was before i added anything.
2. Everything should work exactly the same as it did before being "smart-ified", and should never stop working because of a network being down, or a power outage reset it. This means light switches still need to look and act like light switches, in 100% of cases. A thermostat should still work without WiFi, the TV remote should always be able to control the TV, the door should be able to be opened with a key, etc... When my nephew comes over and likes to switch the lights on and off really fast when he can sneak over to it, I shouldn't need to "reset" anything or have it be in a weird state because of that.
3. Rely on external servers as little as possible. If the internet is down, but my local network is up, my whole system should run at least 90% as well as it does with the internet.
Following those few ground rules meant that it cost more to do the whole system, and there were some things I could not upgrade to "smart devices", but it made the whole process much more fullproof, and it was significantly easier when we went to leave (just had to mention that the smart home stuff was not included in the sale of the house).
Light switches were "automated" by putting small z-wave switches in the electrical box of each switch (leaving the original switch showing and acting the same way it always did), z-wave plugs and power strips were used to turn on/off various things if needed, smart lightbulbs were avoided at all costs, the thermostat was reliant on a 3rd party network for the remote switching, but still worked 100% of the time by adjusting it on the wall. Door locks, garage door controllers, doorbell, etc... They all worked completely on their own, and then had the extra "smart" functionality layered on top.
I hear the sentiment that all IoT stuff is garbage, and I have to completely disagree. The cheapest item in the category is probably garbage, but that's common with just about every other area. If you spend the money, if you actually do a little research, there are many options out there which are secure, reliable, and actually built to last.
That's a very interesting way of looking at it. I never thought about it that way before, but that's exactly what I'm talking about.
For example, I have a google home. Google home relies on an external server to work, but that's okay, since it's not really "replacing" anything, only adding a new "class" of device.
But it's not okay for a door lock to not take a standard key (or in my case, the door lock needed a number pad), just to get "smart" functionality.
And I shouldn't have to "teach" anyone how to use it. My mother-in-law (a self described "technophobe") should be able to use everything in the house the same way she uses those items in her house.
I've seen so many people (like in the linked blog) have to describe to guests which switches they can use, or how to install the app to control the lights.
Even if that was 100% local, it's still not okay in my book.
This is pretty much my hard requirements as well. It's why I have smart light switches instead of smart bulbs, for example. The controls are intelligent, but they also work the way even I use them most of the time: Hitting the switch as I enter or exit a room.
The requirement I add to yours is that none of my devices are permitted to talk to the Internet except my PC. That means no Wi-Fi devices, for the most part. (I do have some IP cameras, but my network disables their ability to talk externally.) Any communication between my house and the outside world goes through a single network device which I can depend on to implement reasonable security practices.
I am dealing with this right now. I am fixing up my house to sell. I moved out of it into a new home a month ago. I disconnected the Internet connection at the house I am trying to sell. I have a Wink Relay there and I deleted my account from it before disconnecting the Internet. Now I can't use the physical switches to control the lights they are connected to. The designers of these devices are not thinking at all about the long term use cases.
I think the underlying issue is that people don't see a huge amount of value in a little bit of automation and balk at the prices, so the market consists mostly of buyers that really want to be able to do various automations.
Answer: Open suitcase. Insert 5 t-shirts, 2 trousers, 7 units of underwear of preference, 7 pairs of socks. Close suitcase. Repeat the same with laptop into backpack. Open door. Move out. Done.
I recently sold my home. I didn't take the plunge with smart switches, but I had Nest thermostats and Nest smoke alarms.
I wish I either removed everything before putting my house on the market, or excluded them all from the sale. The buyer was confused, and the Nest smoke alarms needed to be replaced prior to closing.
The Nest smoke alarms were fine, but due to local fire codes, I needed to have wifi running at inspection time and all of my smoke alarms had to be Nest. I was replacing one a year and still had a few "dumb" smoke alarms in the mix. Unfortunately, my realtor advised me poorly in this situation when I told him my plan was to take the smoke alarms and thermostats with me.
Fire code requires that fire alarms be networked to alert people in all rooms in the event of a fire. Older un-networked units are grandfathers until you begin replacement. Wifi networking is allowed by the code, but for obvious reasons, the inspector has to verify that it works and is set up correctly which requires running wifi.
Personally I would not purchase a home that was configured with nest or other home automation equipment for several reasons.
1) It's a huge security risk. When you buy a home the first thing you do is change the locks because you don't know who the previous owner may have once loaned keys out to. Now you have a bunch of computers in your house giving remote access that may or may not be giving other people access and you can't tell.
2) Most consumer home automation systems have incredibly bad failure states. Those wirelessly networked alarms? When you cheap Chinese wifi router catches fire from a faulty power supply the failure mode is that you die. That's a pretty big oversight. Remember when NEST pushed an untested software update remotely and caused dozens of houses in the Northern Midwest to lose heat in the middle of winter and then be destroyed by broken pipes?
3) Vendor lock in. I don't want the previous owner to lock me into a line of products. Period. I'm sure everyone here remembers when Phillips decided that their smart light sockets would embrace DRM and only accept Phillips brand LED bulbs. They backed down but it is bound to come up again. Not to mention simple incompatibility between competing products and stacks.
4) It's just a damn pain to use most of the time for gain that can be measured almost entirely in novelty factor.
I've dealt with it in the state fire code for Massachusetts and Maryland. I believe it is also in the New York and New Jersey code books. I'm unsure of other states but, it is a relatively recent adoption in all of the aforementioned states and I expect that it will be common in nearly all states soon.
If it seems to be a bit much just be glad you aren't in Massachusetts where they are currently trying to get arc flash rated 110V breakers added as a requirement to the electric code.
> trying to get arc flash rated 110V breakers added as a requirement to the electric code.
Are you just talking about MA adopting newer versions of the NEC that require AFCI [0] more places, or is there really something new related to arc flash?
[0] A proprietary software hellhole, like everything else these days.
Arc fault protection for outlets in dwelling bedrooms was was new in the 2002 NEC. Back then, the only available solution was an arc-fault interrupt circuit breaker. Arc fault receptacles are currently available in the market place...
...however, the code (at least back in 2002) specified protection of all electrical outlets. Receptacles are plugged into outlets. So are hired wired lights, smoke detectors, etc. An outlet is "A point on the wiring system at which current is taken to supply utilization equipment."
This means that any literal reading of the code requires arc-fault breakers from a practical perspective since even the outlet into which an arc-fault receptacle is plugged requires protection upstream from the receptacle. On the other hand, building departments often make code interpretations that are politically expedient and that's why some jurisdictions may allow arc-fault receptacles as a means of code compliance.
AFAIK the code also requires the wiring itself in those places be AFCI protected, since the (immediate) goal was to avoid smoldering fires in the wall where people sleep. This would imply the simplest route is an AFCI breaker for the whole branch circuit, although it was (is?) permissible to run metal conduit up to the first receptacle and have that do the AFCI.
Would have loved for the NEC to require that the code on AFCIs was technician-upgradeable and some general sense of open, but I'll just go back to banging my head against the wall now.
Networked isn't really the right term. Hardwired fire alarms are the new requirement. They just have AC power with battery backup and an additional wire that triggers all the wired alarms to go off when one goes off.
In Maryland at least, there are non-hard-wired alternatives in some cases that aren't new construction but still trigger an upgrade required.
I have some that have "long-term tamper-proof batteries" (I think they last 5 years or something)... and _somehow_ are "interconnected" (so they can all trigger each other) which was a requirement. They don't use _my_ wifi, I don't know how they are interconnected without wires exactly (or if it even really works). I'm not worried about it, but it passed inspection.
It's not that hard to change a thermostat and smoke alarm. "Dumb" smoke alarms and thermostats are very inexpensive and easy to install. Buy a home for the structure and location. You can always change the few things you don't like.
Honestly, I'm not sure. I thought they had a backup mesh network. I bought them because they speak in English instead of making a series of nonsense beeps; they're easy to silence when you burn something in your kitchen; they send a push alert when they need batteries instead of needing to chase down a random beep in the house; ect, ect.
I really don't care about a backup mesh network as long as they are loud enough when there is no network.
Ah, looked it up, and it seems they must have a separate protocol that they use for interconnect: https://nest.com/support/article/Are-my-Nest-Protects-still-.... And apparently it's even sort of a standard. Nifty :) Your comment about requiring wifi frightened me somewhat, but I guess they wanted to check Nest-specific things or something?
I honestly don't know. I couldn't get a straight answer from my realtor.
A few days later I was at a bar while their alarm system was getting inspected. I asked one of the pros about the situation and he told me that Nests require a working internet connection in order to pass state inspection, and all of the alarms have to be Nest.
> do we hand over all the cloud passwords as well? Or do we factory reset everything and let them go through the dull process of setting up new accounts?
Wow, I hope this is rhetorical. No, you never give anyone your password for anything. Yes, you absolutely let them go through the dull process of setting up new accounts.
> When I move into a house, do I want to spend the first day looking up manuals online to try and work out which buttons to hold down in order to claim the devices as my own?
shrug, yeah, why not? That's the kind of stuff I would do anyways. Moving into a new home requires all kinds of "oh, ok, that's how that works" kind of discoveries. "Hmm, the breaker panel says '#5: kitchen' but that one also apparently has the garage lights. But not the garage door opener, for some reason."
> not be able to easily set the heating until they've moved in ... the epitome of "first-world problems"
I will concede that this is truly a PITA and a drawback of modern life.
Computers are so cheap that we can "afford" to put them everywhere. Hopefully the next generation of these devices will have sane fallback/factory reset modes that behave like their ancestor devices until they've been setup/enabled.
> Wow, I hope this is rhetorical. No, you never give anyone your password for anything.
Well assuming it's a unique password, not connected to other accounts and you've deleted any sensitive data, why is this so obviously not even an option to you? Sometimes deleting an account is a ginormous pain and it saves some trouble for the buyer.
...because they would have access to data that is not theirs. I know we get so used to leaving our trail everywhere so folks don't care, but if you think about it, the Nest thermostat probably knows every time you've walked by it for the past few years, when you've interacted with the thermostat, settings / preferences, and a host of other data.
Left to the new owner, maybe "who cares!" but one should really try to get rid of data they no longer need / use wherever possible.
> A bit of a faff - and possibly annoying to the new occupiers to not be able to easily set the heating until they've moved in, configured the WiFi, and registered for an account.
I would argue that that's a failure of the thermostat. It absolutely needs to have a dumber fallback mechanism, not just for new residents, but for the current ones. (What if my internet goes down? What if the cat pees on my router?)
You should probably start by changing the litterbox...
More seriously though, this is a major pet peeve of mine. Many of these devices will also become completely unusable when the manufacturer decides to terminate the service. This is a big reason why I hesitate to pay for products that don't adhere to open standards, and allow for local/offline use as a primary mode.
Yes, the #1 rule of IoT - if it doesn't have a solid LAN-only protocol, don't buy it. Anything relying on a single cloud service isn't worth your time or money. If you have LAN-only access it means not only that you'll have the ability to use it after the manufacturer goes away but also that you can always secure it by simply dropping it behind the appropriate NAT or firewall.
Even Bluetooth is a no-go. What happens if the control is app no longer available or drops support for your model? Something like a sous vide stick should have control buttons.
Ditto for stuff like Roombas. I've noticed all the new ones have their schedules set via an app. WTF? My current one has buttons and that works just fine. I'm seriously thinking of getting a spare now.
Smartphones are great solution for controlling a lot of things, but it seems like we're in a place where people stupidly think it's the solution to control all things.
I think Bluetooth could be doable; assuming their use of the protocol is well documented and open to 3rd party implementation. For a lot of these devices, the API could be described in AT commands (flung over any of several bluetooth profiles) pretty easily.
These devices use Bluetooth Smart/LE (as opposed to traditional). It provides functionality more akin to RPC and Pub/Sub. But yes, it's easily implemented if documented, I've done a device to replicate another vendor's protocol for some basic IO.
I left an Ecobee smart thermostat when I sold my house. I deleted my online account and you could still adjust the temperature manually. I assume the new owner would eventually set up an online account but they wouldn't need to if they just wanted a 'dumb' thermostat. The Ecobee also works as a 'dumb' fallback when wifi is down.
I actually had this problem with Nest thermostats: One of them was "locked", as in the whole UI was behind a password, by the previous owner, who moved out and took his wifi AP. I then moved in with a new wifi AP with a new SSID and new password, and the thermostat obviously couldn't get network access. Without network access it could not be unlocked remotely, and without being unlocked its network could not be reconfigured. There is no way to factory reset the device nor flash firmware to reset it. Eventually I called the previous owner and got a few candidate PINs (he had forgotten...)
One would think that a new homeowner, if actually locked out of the thermostat somehow, could go to their local hardware store and pick up a cheap $30 thermostat to control the furnace.
Yes, or that. Point is, the only thing that’s locked/secured is easily removed and replaced by a dumb, easily acquired device. Nobody that has accepted the responsibility of home ownership will be denied access to heat due to a smart home thermostat that they don’t have full access to.
After I bought a house, I couldn't turn off the dining room chandelier lights for three days while I figured out the box they'd stashed in a cabinet had a radio transmitter that talked to the light. A while later I paid an electrician to run some wire through the ceiling and a wall, and install an outlet with a switch.
There was also an outlet in another room with some complex controls. It stopped working after a while. Turned out the switch - which is connected to a freaking electrical wire - required a battery to work. I had that taken out too, and good riddance to all of it.
The first-world problem is not the "staying warm" issue, but the fact that the fancy 'IOT' thermostat requires an internet connection to set.
In "third-world" areas, and even in many modern "first-world" areas, a heater can be manually turned on with a simple switch, regardless of thermostat settings, and just as easily turned off. The lack of these controls on a significantly more expensive thermostat is where the first-world problem creeps in.
If I have a separate account for my home - say 742EvergreenTerrace@example.com - then it would be easier to hand that account and password over the the new owner.
Yes, I suppose that does seem like an interesting solution. But it seems like more trouble to go through than it's worth. Not to mention that if the new owner is sufficiently paranoid, then maybe they wouldn't trust that changing the password is sufficient to remove your access. So it would be all for naught.
It's almost certainly against the Terms of Service agreement. Presumably, you click-through agreed to a ToS for each one, and you have no right to transfer that agreement to someone else. The agreement is obviously tied to the human who "read" it, not whoever happens to control the account credentials.
Not that the ToS for your light bulb dimmer matters much in practice, but technically it's probably forbidden.
One might be able to work around that by creating a corporation, 742 Evergreen Terrace Management Company, in some state where it is cheap to incorporate, and having the corporation own all the accounts related to the house.
When you sell the house, transfer ownership of 742 Evergreen Terrace Management Company to the new homeowner.
That's not entirely outrageous. There are even existing Corporate and Trust structures in use for ownership transfer needs (mailbox keys and similar shared infrastructure that maybe can't be directly deeded/titled) in deed-restricted communities (Home Owners Association) and condo buildings (Condo Owners Association). A "smart neighborhood" could work to make sure that smart home functionality transfers smoothly between home owners.
That could be a cool exercise for your home. Document the various quirks and routines in a Github repository, then the new owner can gain access by forking it. Taking it a step farther, your family could submit issues or pull requests for various issues as they come up, generating an easy list of things that should be documented or fixed.
Now realistically the person buying your house probably doesn't know how to use Git and your family probably isn't gonna make pull requests, but it seems like a novel use of Git and Github. Maybe if it were effective enough a wrapper could be made?
It would be in your interest to conceal the problems that your house has, in order to compete with the ignorance offered by everyone else. While this would benefit humanity, nobody would do it.
All houses have problems. The selling point is, "yeah, we have problems like everyone else, but they're out in the open, so you'll never be surprised and you'll have a clear gameplan to deal with all of them".
YMMV. But I do this when I sell cars. I try to be up front with every issue I can, and take loads of pictures. Not only does it save people time, but I can basically say, "Well, I've factored all these things in already" and it's harder for them to use something like "there's a dent here" in negotiation, because I'm the one who brought it to the table. They also see me as more honest in my experience. Car sells faster.
On the flip side, I can only really get the true value of the car. If I didn't list the issues I could probably inflate the price and only discount on what they happen to find during inspection.
I've thought of something similar, but much less fancy. I just keep an OmniOutliner document where I log repairs, maintenance, specs for things like air filters, and that sort of thing.
If I'm alive when I stop living here, my plan is to print out the log and have it nicely bound, and turn that over to the next owners as something like a ship's log, but for a house instead of a ship.
I'll also leave a thumb drive with the OmniOutliner document, exports of that document in various formats [1], and a PDF of the print out.
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"Are there any items or systems on the property connected or controlled wirelessly, via internet protocol (“IP”), to a router or gateway or directly to the cloud?"
I have IKEA Trådfri (which is ZigBee-based). While the hub does connect to the internet for software updates (using ethernet - no WiFi, and no WiFi password to update), there's no "cloud" component. You can't create an "IKEA account", even if you wanted. If IKEA went out of business tomorrow, my switches and bulbs would keep working. I like that approach a lot.
It would be perfectly feasible to leave the IKEA hardware in the house if we were to move.
IKEA are one of the outliers in this space unfortunately.
Last year I bought some Osram Lightify bulbs, as here in Europe they are compatible with the Hue hub (which like Tradfri also works offline). I also got their own hub to update the bulbs, and it is absolutely useless. It says it is connected locally, but still it takes seconds for the bulbs to change state, and usually in a group only some of them change. The same bulbs paired with the Hue hub work perfectly.
It is WiFi only, and I‘ve had it randomly lose the connection and need to be reset. I haven’t tried it offline, but I imagine it’s not going to work.
I only got smart bulbs as I wanted to be able to change the colour temperature and brightness, they are just connected to dumb switches. Tradfri seems superior for this now, as their controllers don’t even need a hub to control lights.
Works great so far. The iOS app was janky at first (it would forget about the hub it was connected to) but seems better now. I don't really use the app though - a recent update added Alexa support, and that works great. I've mounted the remote control on the wall and either use that or Alexa to turn the lights on and off.
I don't want purple or green lights in my living room, so the fact that IKEA bulbs are limited to warmth and brightness is fine for me (I like to just keep them on "warm").
Google's Weave has ideas of ownership & security on a devices unsure where its. we could see a day where a house of infrastructure devices gets handed over as part of the sale with this type of system.
I suspect that eventually this kind of thing will start being specified in the conveyancing, and the lawyers will take the accounts through their custody just as they do the keys and deeds.
This might be a little tangential, but as interesting as the idea of a smarthome is, I'm not sure I'll ever buy into it. I've never tried it, so can't speak to the benefits, but on this topic I'm always reminded of how my mom decided on buying a 2004 Honda Civic in 2008. She wanted manual locks and windows, to minimize the possible failure scenarios, and I can understand why. Sure, it's a pain in the ass to manually roll the window down, but she'll never have to worry about it going wrong.
Moving out of a smarthome seems like a pain. I can imagine in the future that smarthome companies will roll out better authentication and setup processes, but in my paranoia I can imagine too many security issues that will arise. I don't want my home to be a gateway for breach in another dimension. I'm okay to turn the light on myself when I enter a room, set the thermostat, and water my own plants. I don't see a need for improvement there.
When I installed smart stuff in my home I kept the originals. When I sold earlier this year I switched everything back out before I listed it. It was worth the hassle to me. No one pays extra because the Nest thermostat is installed vs $30 basic. And I’m going to want to install another Nest in the next home so...
I haven’t installed any smart outlets but I would consider doing the same. Most of these jobs are super easy, and if you can’t handle it a $20/hr handyman certainly can.
I am setting everything in my home up with it's own email account and gear.
Additionally - use something like a raspberry pi or an appliance that will remain with the home. If I decide to rent it out, or leave it behind, its not tied to me, but is still manageable.
All internet connected devices in our home are identified by a special "home" email, and info. No personally identified info -- just house identified info (of course not with the house address!)
I wonder how many license agreements I did not follow by doing this?
All devices/services have their own "identity" that belongs to the house (basically the house has its own email address). When we move we simply need to hand over that identity to the new home owner.
This is one thing that worries me as well. Fortunately, none of my smart home stuff is cloud connected.
Most smart home problems that tend to be solved by using a cloud service could be solved just as well by using a VPN. I do this with my Hue and my Wifi cameras, both with great success.
The challenge with a VPN is setting it up. Router manufacturers generally either offer OpenVPN, which requires a 3rd party app, or PPTP, which is horribly insecure. A router that could generate a secure IPSec configuration and push out a profile for the smartphones would make it a lot more usable.
Even then, it's still probably going to be more work than using a cloud service.
Maybe IPv6 will solve the problem as all of these things can have publically routable addresses. What could possibly go wrong?
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 290 ms ] threadI'd actually go further. I do care about home automation, because it is almost certainly a negative and possibly a deal-breaker for me to put any offer in to buy a place.
If it has anything installed that has any form of off-site access or any dependency on a remote service then I am going to require the existing owner to remove it and make good at their own expense as a condition of any offer (other than possibly a suitably approved alarm system with clearly detailed monitoring arrangements and contacts).
Likewise if there is anything installed that relies on any sort of sensors or "smart" control systems, I am going to require credible written guarantees about the security, privacy, safety and longevity of that system, or far more likely it is again going to have to be removed and made good at the current owner's expense as a condition.
I say this because the systems that ADT, etc sell these days are largely made up of white labeled COTS Z-Wave sensors with the security panel just being a hub and interface to the Z-Wave network.
The house I moved into this past year is covered by sensors for an old ADT system that are useless to me, and I've been slowly removing them and replacing them with equivalent Z-Wave e.g., door and motion sensors as I get to it. Whenever I move, I'll take the hub with me. Any sensors that get left behind would be almost entirely equivalent to an old security system being left in the house except for the fact that they'd be pairable with any system the new owner decides to put in place since they're actually standards based.
Zigbee is also fairly popular for some applications; it's what e.g., Philips Hue runs on.
Devices using either of these will generally pair with any hub with the appropriate radios like Smart Things.
There's additionally a class of home automation stuff that runs over WiFi; they more generally have proprietary communication protocols and I personally avoid them for the most part.
No matter; I wasn't interested, and I was happy to get rid of all the their signs and stickers.
In fact, ADT's latest move seems to be piggybacking on Smart Things for HA, but... since I already have Smart Things what do I really need ADT for?
So, no smoke or CO2 alarms in your house?
It's like staging a home right? None of this furniture comes with the house but how it's staged absolutely influences your impression of the home.
That being said, if I was ever to leave home automation hardware behind, it'd be a "if you want to pay x on top of the already agreed upon price for the property, I'll leave it", where x is the cost for me to just buy new modules for my new place.
That sounds like a pain in the ass.
> if I was ever to leave home automation hardware behind, it'd be a "if you want to pay x on top of the already agreed upon price for the property, I'll leave it
I don't want to buy new crap to deal with the crap you left behind. I'd argue that you ought to pay me for dealing with some arbitrary hardware that I've now inherited. This is the equivalent of leaving some finicky boiler system whose spare parts can only be ordered from a single factory in Germany.
In context they are also more or less offering to remove it for free. I expect that includes putting conventional fixtures in (depending on the terms of the sale, but why bother trying to insist that the house doesn't come with light switches).
At my old condo, one thing I left as a bit of a 'gift', was a extremely solid dual-arm TV wall mount. It was cheap for me to repurchase for my new place, and then they don't have the risk of screwing into the studs near but not in the holes I had mounted mine or such concerns that might weaken their own mount. I had all the hardware and instructions, which I left with it. This might've been a less handy choice had either the condo been large enough for other places for the TV to make sense or be appealing, or if the TV mount I had installed wasn't sturdy enough to support all possible TVs one might be bringing in.
If you live in any major urban center that request would likely get laughed at since the value of your depreciated hardware likely wouldn't even count as a rounding error on the purchase price. Some buyers might even want a discount on your selling price because of the extra work they'd have to do to get rid of the gear.
So they're a good idea if you think it's very likely you'll stay in a house 15+ years, but not so much otherwise.
Even aesthetical changes are a big warning - this one has been somehow tampered with, and you have no clue what was changed and for what reason.
For example I bought some older BMW few years back. When i went for some complete checkup after cca 2 years, mechanic told me that car has been lowered a bit and brakes are some lightweight version. It was my first car and I didn't notice, and effin' dealer didn't mention it. All good but - lowered car has issue in places like underground parkings, where road is steep and sometimes I hit the bottom of the car when road bends too much. So because some idiot previous owner wanting to squeeze a bit extra driveability out of a diesel car (although amazing diesel it is), I now have these crappy consequences and have to drive carefully like with some ferrari. I've hit the bottom in various situations maybe 20x so far, maybe one day it will break something crucial and I will be left in some nasty situation with broken car.
Yeah, you want untampered (more) predictable stock cars.
Technically you can take the stove, fridge, washer, dryer, window coverings; but almost nobody does. The buyers realtor will automatically put a clause in the contract that they stay. It saves everybody the effort and cost of moving them, and generally the rest of the room matches them and not the new house. Sometimes this isn't done but that is rare.
Light bulbs are not in the contract, but they aren't worth the bother to remove.
Seems like there are two options. (1) You can do it the Dutch way, i.e. every time someone moves they'll have to take their floors out. Those floors often won't fit into your new apartment, so you're just creating lots of waste. Not to mention all the effort associated with it. You will have to remove the floors, but also the person moving into your place will have had to remove the floors from their old place. (2) You leave the floors in when you move out. Then the new tenant/owner can decide whether to keep them or not. In the worst case, both new and old inhabitant will still decide to remove the floors. In the best case, no one will have to do anything and no waste is created.
So what could possibly be gained from the first way of doing things? Genuinely curious if someone knows the reasoning behind this.
Haha I was not...people literally take the floor laminates with them when they leave, if not to reuse them but out of some sense of ownership I don't fully grasp.
Apartments are rented in a few ways: fully furnished (incl. floors and all the furnishings and even kitchen stuff) which is aimed at expats who make lots of money and people who are living short term; partially furnished (maybe including floors and some appliances or fittings, for which you'll pay a regulated monthly fee), or bare, which is as it suggests without fittings and without floor coverings. The latter is cheapest and most common I think.
I've heard that sometimes you can make a deal with the leaving tenants if you'd like to keep their existing floors (for a price, of course!). People here seem rather adept and used to installing the laminate themselves, and they also seem to like the idea that you can put down whichever floor covering you like best.
It must be a good business to sell floor laminate...
Perhaps you are thinking of rent?
Most sellers will leave anything fixed to the building like lights, sinks, toilets, doors, door handles, sockets, fitted carpets, fitted kitchen appliances, plants that are buried in the garden, fires and fireplaces, television aerials, boilers and radiators, built-in cupboards, permanently installed mirrors, and so on.
Things that aren't fixed in quite the same way have different conventions. For example paintings, light shades, freestanding lamps, rugs, curtains, plants in freestanding tubs, and freestanding appliances are often taken by the seller.
It's always possible to negotiate, of course; if the buyer and seller agree on something different, that's perfectly legal. And there are horror stories of overly trusting buyers discovering the seller has removed the turf from the lawn, and things like that.
All we had were some sockets in the ceiling into which you'll fasten your own bulb-holders/shades, and then your own bulbs.
The only lighting present by default was that above the bathroom mirror(s).
If you say "fixtures stay in the house" then they stay. If not, no obligation to leave them. Typically, however, these clauses deal primarily with appliances and other larger items (TVs, hot tubs, etc)
In my experience people don't think to bring the bulbs with them, written or otherwise.
I don't see how this is different than learning how your 10-year-old garage door opener or 20-year-old furnace works.
The fact that you do this has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. You and I are not representative for this.
What button? I've got a detached garage, so it doesn't make sense to have a button inside. And when the previous residents were (apparently) evicted, they took various keys, remotes, etc with them. I most certainly had to buy a remote and find my garage door opener's manual to get it working. Damned if I was going to pay a garage door repairman to come out and hit a few buttons for me.
Your typical HN reader is probably willing and able to reprogram the thing on their own, but this is not normal.
1. Everything must be reversible, preferably within a short period of time. If I replace the doorbell or locks with smart ones, I keep the old ones in storage. If I replace light switches, I make sure to document the way the wiring worked before I touched it, and keep everything so I can put it back if/when I move. I had a house with 14 light switches, 2 door locks, a garage door opener, 3 cameras, 7 door and window sensors, like 4 or 5 outlet controllers, and a thermostat all upgraded to "smart devices" in my house, and it took me about 5 hours to set everything back to the way it was before i added anything.
2. Everything should work exactly the same as it did before being "smart-ified", and should never stop working because of a network being down, or a power outage reset it. This means light switches still need to look and act like light switches, in 100% of cases. A thermostat should still work without WiFi, the TV remote should always be able to control the TV, the door should be able to be opened with a key, etc... When my nephew comes over and likes to switch the lights on and off really fast when he can sneak over to it, I shouldn't need to "reset" anything or have it be in a weird state because of that.
3. Rely on external servers as little as possible. If the internet is down, but my local network is up, my whole system should run at least 90% as well as it does with the internet.
Following those few ground rules meant that it cost more to do the whole system, and there were some things I could not upgrade to "smart devices", but it made the whole process much more fullproof, and it was significantly easier when we went to leave (just had to mention that the smart home stuff was not included in the sale of the house).
Light switches were "automated" by putting small z-wave switches in the electrical box of each switch (leaving the original switch showing and acting the same way it always did), z-wave plugs and power strips were used to turn on/off various things if needed, smart lightbulbs were avoided at all costs, the thermostat was reliant on a 3rd party network for the remote switching, but still worked 100% of the time by adjusting it on the wall. Door locks, garage door controllers, doorbell, etc... They all worked completely on their own, and then had the extra "smart" functionality layered on top.
I hear the sentiment that all IoT stuff is garbage, and I have to completely disagree. The cheapest item in the category is probably garbage, but that's common with just about every other area. If you spend the money, if you actually do a little research, there are many options out there which are secure, reliable, and actually built to last.
For example, I have a google home. Google home relies on an external server to work, but that's okay, since it's not really "replacing" anything, only adding a new "class" of device.
But it's not okay for a door lock to not take a standard key (or in my case, the door lock needed a number pad), just to get "smart" functionality.
I've seen so many people (like in the linked blog) have to describe to guests which switches they can use, or how to install the app to control the lights.
Even if that was 100% local, it's still not okay in my book.
The requirement I add to yours is that none of my devices are permitted to talk to the Internet except my PC. That means no Wi-Fi devices, for the most part. (I do have some IP cameras, but my network disables their ability to talk externally.) Any communication between my house and the outside world goes through a single network device which I can depend on to implement reasonable security practices.
I think the underlying issue is that people don't see a huge amount of value in a little bit of automation and balk at the prices, so the market consists mostly of buyers that really want to be able to do various automations.
My hue switches also control their hue lights just fine without any internet - although they do need the hue hub to be powered up.
I wish I either removed everything before putting my house on the market, or excluded them all from the sale. The buyer was confused, and the Nest smoke alarms needed to be replaced prior to closing.
The Nest smoke alarms were fine, but due to local fire codes, I needed to have wifi running at inspection time and all of my smoke alarms had to be Nest. I was replacing one a year and still had a few "dumb" smoke alarms in the mix. Unfortunately, my realtor advised me poorly in this situation when I told him my plan was to take the smoke alarms and thermostats with me.
Personally I would not purchase a home that was configured with nest or other home automation equipment for several reasons.
1) It's a huge security risk. When you buy a home the first thing you do is change the locks because you don't know who the previous owner may have once loaned keys out to. Now you have a bunch of computers in your house giving remote access that may or may not be giving other people access and you can't tell.
2) Most consumer home automation systems have incredibly bad failure states. Those wirelessly networked alarms? When you cheap Chinese wifi router catches fire from a faulty power supply the failure mode is that you die. That's a pretty big oversight. Remember when NEST pushed an untested software update remotely and caused dozens of houses in the Northern Midwest to lose heat in the middle of winter and then be destroyed by broken pipes?
3) Vendor lock in. I don't want the previous owner to lock me into a line of products. Period. I'm sure everyone here remembers when Phillips decided that their smart light sockets would embrace DRM and only accept Phillips brand LED bulbs. They backed down but it is bound to come up again. Not to mention simple incompatibility between competing products and stacks.
4) It's just a damn pain to use most of the time for gain that can be measured almost entirely in novelty factor.
If it seems to be a bit much just be glad you aren't in Massachusetts where they are currently trying to get arc flash rated 110V breakers added as a requirement to the electric code.
Are you just talking about MA adopting newer versions of the NEC that require AFCI [0] more places, or is there really something new related to arc flash?
[0] A proprietary software hellhole, like everything else these days.
...however, the code (at least back in 2002) specified protection of all electrical outlets. Receptacles are plugged into outlets. So are hired wired lights, smoke detectors, etc. An outlet is "A point on the wiring system at which current is taken to supply utilization equipment."
This means that any literal reading of the code requires arc-fault breakers from a practical perspective since even the outlet into which an arc-fault receptacle is plugged requires protection upstream from the receptacle. On the other hand, building departments often make code interpretations that are politically expedient and that's why some jurisdictions may allow arc-fault receptacles as a means of code compliance.
AFAIK the code also requires the wiring itself in those places be AFCI protected, since the (immediate) goal was to avoid smoldering fires in the wall where people sleep. This would imply the simplest route is an AFCI breaker for the whole branch circuit, although it was (is?) permissible to run metal conduit up to the first receptacle and have that do the AFCI.
Would have loved for the NEC to require that the code on AFCIs was technician-upgradeable and some general sense of open, but I'll just go back to banging my head against the wall now.
I have some that have "long-term tamper-proof batteries" (I think they last 5 years or something)... and _somehow_ are "interconnected" (so they can all trigger each other) which was a requirement. They don't use _my_ wifi, I don't know how they are interconnected without wires exactly (or if it even really works). I'm not worried about it, but it passed inspection.
It's not that hard to change a thermostat and smoke alarm. "Dumb" smoke alarms and thermostats are very inexpensive and easy to install. Buy a home for the structure and location. You can always change the few things you don't like.
Do … do people realize that power cuts occasionally coincide with house fires?
I really don't care about a backup mesh network as long as they are loud enough when there is no network.
A few days later I was at a bar while their alarm system was getting inspected. I asked one of the pros about the situation and he told me that Nests require a working internet connection in order to pass state inspection, and all of the alarms have to be Nest.
Wow, I hope this is rhetorical. No, you never give anyone your password for anything. Yes, you absolutely let them go through the dull process of setting up new accounts.
> When I move into a house, do I want to spend the first day looking up manuals online to try and work out which buttons to hold down in order to claim the devices as my own?
shrug, yeah, why not? That's the kind of stuff I would do anyways. Moving into a new home requires all kinds of "oh, ok, that's how that works" kind of discoveries. "Hmm, the breaker panel says '#5: kitchen' but that one also apparently has the garage lights. But not the garage door opener, for some reason."
> not be able to easily set the heating until they've moved in ... the epitome of "first-world problems"
I will concede that this is truly a PITA and a drawback of modern life.
Computers are so cheap that we can "afford" to put them everywhere. Hopefully the next generation of these devices will have sane fallback/factory reset modes that behave like their ancestor devices until they've been setup/enabled.
Well assuming it's a unique password, not connected to other accounts and you've deleted any sensitive data, why is this so obviously not even an option to you? Sometimes deleting an account is a ginormous pain and it saves some trouble for the buyer.
Left to the new owner, maybe "who cares!" but one should really try to get rid of data they no longer need / use wherever possible.
I would argue that that's a failure of the thermostat. It absolutely needs to have a dumber fallback mechanism, not just for new residents, but for the current ones. (What if my internet goes down? What if the cat pees on my router?)
More seriously though, this is a major pet peeve of mine. Many of these devices will also become completely unusable when the manufacturer decides to terminate the service. This is a big reason why I hesitate to pay for products that don't adhere to open standards, and allow for local/offline use as a primary mode.
This has got to win HN today for the most HNist of comments. ;)
Ditto for stuff like Roombas. I've noticed all the new ones have their schedules set via an app. WTF? My current one has buttons and that works just fine. I'm seriously thinking of getting a spare now.
Smartphones are great solution for controlling a lot of things, but it seems like we're in a place where people stupidly think it's the solution to control all things.
Staying warm is a first-world problem? How out of touch can the author be? That's a basic need.
There was also an outlet in another room with some complex controls. It stopped working after a while. Turned out the switch - which is connected to a freaking electrical wire - required a battery to work. I had that taken out too, and good riddance to all of it.
In "third-world" areas, and even in many modern "first-world" areas, a heater can be manually turned on with a simple switch, regardless of thermostat settings, and just as easily turned off. The lack of these controls on a significantly more expensive thermostat is where the first-world problem creeps in.
If I have a separate account for my home - say 742EvergreenTerrace@example.com - then it would be easier to hand that account and password over the the new owner.
Not that the ToS for your light bulb dimmer matters much in practice, but technically it's probably forbidden.
When you sell the house, transfer ownership of 742 Evergreen Terrace Management Company to the new homeowner.
Now realistically the person buying your house probably doesn't know how to use Git and your family probably isn't gonna make pull requests, but it seems like a novel use of Git and Github. Maybe if it were effective enough a wrapper could be made?
You're selling it as a mitigation of stress.
On the flip side, I can only really get the true value of the car. If I didn't list the issues I could probably inflate the price and only discount on what they happen to find during inspection.
If I'm alive when I stop living here, my plan is to print out the log and have it nicely bound, and turn that over to the next owners as something like a ship's log, but for a house instead of a ship.
I'll also leave a thumb drive with the OmniOutliner document, exports of that document in various formats [1], and a PDF of the print out.
[1] Probably HTML, Word, OPML, and RTF.
http://transitionrealty.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/RE-Pr...
Line 183-184 "Are there any items or systems on the property connected or controlled wirelessly, via internet protocol (“IP”), to a router or gateway or directly to the cloud?"
It would be perfectly feasible to leave the IKEA hardware in the house if we were to move.
Last year I bought some Osram Lightify bulbs, as here in Europe they are compatible with the Hue hub (which like Tradfri also works offline). I also got their own hub to update the bulbs, and it is absolutely useless. It says it is connected locally, but still it takes seconds for the bulbs to change state, and usually in a group only some of them change. The same bulbs paired with the Hue hub work perfectly.
It is WiFi only, and I‘ve had it randomly lose the connection and need to be reset. I haven’t tried it offline, but I imagine it’s not going to work.
I only got smart bulbs as I wanted to be able to change the colour temperature and brightness, they are just connected to dumb switches. Tradfri seems superior for this now, as their controllers don’t even need a hub to control lights.
I don't want purple or green lights in my living room, so the fact that IKEA bulbs are limited to warmth and brightness is fine for me (I like to just keep them on "warm").
Andrew Warren video talking about these features https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thUJARumXWE
Moving out of a smarthome seems like a pain. I can imagine in the future that smarthome companies will roll out better authentication and setup processes, but in my paranoia I can imagine too many security issues that will arise. I don't want my home to be a gateway for breach in another dimension. I'm okay to turn the light on myself when I enter a room, set the thermostat, and water my own plants. I don't see a need for improvement there.
I haven’t installed any smart outlets but I would consider doing the same. Most of these jobs are super easy, and if you can’t handle it a $20/hr handyman certainly can.
Additionally - use something like a raspberry pi or an appliance that will remain with the home. If I decide to rent it out, or leave it behind, its not tied to me, but is still manageable.
I wonder how many license agreements I did not follow by doing this?
Most smart home problems that tend to be solved by using a cloud service could be solved just as well by using a VPN. I do this with my Hue and my Wifi cameras, both with great success.
The challenge with a VPN is setting it up. Router manufacturers generally either offer OpenVPN, which requires a 3rd party app, or PPTP, which is horribly insecure. A router that could generate a secure IPSec configuration and push out a profile for the smartphones would make it a lot more usable.
Even then, it's still probably going to be more work than using a cloud service.
Maybe IPv6 will solve the problem as all of these things can have publically routable addresses. What could possibly go wrong?