I am looking for ideas on how to make my house easily transferrable to a future buyer even if the buyer does not understand the underlying technology.
Setup includes:
180 Lutron devices
20 Hue lights
70 Kasa energy monitoring outlets
Sense energy monitoring
3 Nest Thermostats and 11 Cameras
Lots of apple TVs / homepods / temperature sensors, etc.
For starters, I can cross #3, 4, and 6 off my list and just take it with me. I can also take a portion of the Lutron plug in dimmers with me.
That leaves lights (combination of Lutron and Hue light strips), Hubitat (controls all the automations from picos that control all lighting scenes), Hombridge which is exposing everything to Homekit.
What are your techniques to flatten the technology stack and make it transferable to a new buyer?
Limit all lighting to Lutron. Still leaves 3 hubs to transfer but at least they could use all wall mounted and pedestal picos to control lights. Could leave lamp plugins too so they can connect their new lamps. Need to figure out which light strips to use for this situation.
This still leaves a few issues:
Hubitat has become an important part of the scenes for each room. The 5 button picos in each room trigger scenes in Hubitat. I could replace these with a 4 button pico and avoid Hubitat controlling the scenes.
I am exposing all controls to homekit through homebridge. This feels fragile and makes it very difficult for a new buyer. I am at a loss in attempting to find a good solution.
Register all devices to an email address for the house, rather than your own email address. Then just provide the buyer with credentials for each of the house’s registrations, let the buyer change all the passwords (of course, no reused passwords). That way, the buyer gets no access to any of your personal accounts.
Thanks for the reply. I definitely agree with that approach and can setup three generic email addresses for that purpose. The good news is that even if the new owner never logs in to the app, the routines should still work.
The next step is to phase out hue and install strip lights that can be controlled by a lutron plugin. Need to figure out which light strips work well with lutron. The one thing that is still missing is setting up HomeKit, google, or Alexa if they want to have a voice or app controlled home. In this case, I suppose I could simply print out three separate articles of instructions and leave an outline of device names and rooms.
Good point. IP address would be tricky unless I left my network in tact for them. This is a possibility since, by the time I sell, the unify equipment will likely be outdated. The MAC addresses are doable.
I could test this but I assume I do not have to have a network at all since they communicate over their own wireless technology. I should also test to see if the picos control everything without the aid of the hub. The more bullet proof it is the better it would be for guests and for a new buyer.
Remove the technology you are taking with you first before showing your home. (If you show the home with it, you have to sell the home with it, in most cases)
I personally do not recommend leaving ANY "Smart" stuff in a house. Lutron is fine as there are dedicated Lutron programmers and it's considered a pro-grade gear and can operate just like any dumb lights..
I would take 2, 3, 4, and 6 and leave behind Lutron and Nest.
Great feedback-thank you. I agree hue has got to go but unfortunately it is cabinet lighting through out the home and plays a big role in the aesthetics of the home. I need to choose another tech that can be controlled by lutron dimmer plugins.
From your comments, I should consider finding a few companies that would be willing to customize lutron for the new home owner if they desire support. This would be a part of the package I would leave behind.
