Moving House

jester77

Are we making things complicated for ourselves if we ever need to sell up or move house?

Just a shower thought I had the other day. We have a lot IOT devices connected to boilers, built into sockets, attached to walls, doors, windows and so on. And then a lot of these devices are connected to cloud accounts.

If we sell up, do we remove the devices, or transfer ownership of the accounts. If the person looking to purchase is not interested in IOT are we turning them off by maybe making things appear complicated?

Has anyone moved and had to deal with this?

ThisRegard

Won't they be able to factory reset them once they have physical access?

lolliedog

A couple of hours for an electrician and your back to normal.

bk

This is why I've been careful with some of the systems I've installed and I keep it in mind.

For instance, some people who get Philips Hue lights, actually remove their old light switch and plaster over where it was!

Instead I just covered the old light switches with child safety cover things (See the Philips Hue FAQ), which can later be removed with just 5 minutes work and I can then pop cheap LED's in the light fittings and take my Hue bulbs with me.

Similarly when I installed my Netatmo Thermostat, I kept the old one and it will take only a few minutes to reinstall it.

Lots of modern HA tech are now wireless, which makes it easier to take it with you. Think of old alarm systems, they were usually hardwired, so if you sold your house, you lost your investment in it. Now while smart alarm systems are still a pretty immature product, all the ones out their are wireless, meaning, you can easily take the entire system with you to your next home.

Over all, this is why I prefer modular, replaceable systems, rather then the highly built in ones.

Good question and it certainly is something worth considering.

Stoner

Options

Take it away and replace it with standard stuff.

Offer to sell it to the new owner of interested save you replacing and then putting it or similar back , this is the most sensible route if there are two like minded people involved

bk

Stoner wrote: »

Offer to sell it to the new owner of interested save you replacing and then putting it or similar back , this is the most sensible route if there are two like minded people involved

The problem with this, is that if someone is spending hundreds of thousands to buy your home, they will probably expect to throw all this stuff in for free.

You really can't turn around to a person who has just gone through an extremely stressful price war to buy your home from you and then turn around and ask them for an extra few thousands to cover your smart home toys.

You might get lucky and find a like minded person, but most people won't and I'd certainly wouldn't build my system with that assumption in mind.

Even if they agree to pay something towards it, it would likely be a fraction of the cost of new, because in fairness they are buying second hand, maybe quiet old gear at that stage.

Either way you will likely end up out of pocket if you don't take it with you.

Cabaal

bk wrote: »

You really can't turn around to a person who has just gone through an extremely stressful price war to buy your home from you and then turn around and ask them for an extra few thousands to cover your smart home toys.

Have you not learned anything from the movie "Moving"
Just say "I'm taking those with me" and laugh, that makes it all ok

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHANLC9JtWI

Stoner

Cabaal wrote:

Have you not learned anything from the movie "Moving" Just say "I'm taking those with me" and laugh, that makes it all ok

Yah we're taking the pool too

ThisRegard

bk wrote: »

The problem with this, is that if someone is spending hundreds of thousands to buy your home, they will probably expect to throw all this stuff in for free.

We left ours, hence my current search for replacements and interest in the Electric Ireland offers like the Nest.

Stoner

ThisRegard wrote:

We left ours, hence my current search for replacements and interest in the Electric Ireland offers like the Nest.

I'd leave it too. I don't need much of an excuse for upgrading.
I'd go nuts if I saw some nice heating controls in a house and bought it and it was taken out.

That said I'd take some of mine out as it exists purely to be fixed every now and then

bk

Stoner wrote: »

I'd leave it too. I don't need much of an excuse for upgrading.
I'd go nuts if I saw some nice heating controls in a house and bought it and it was taken out.

Yeah, I was thinking that Netatmo at just €99 I might just leave it. Having said that it is so low key, I don't think any body but an extreme techy would recognise it as something special.

Nest on the other hand really stands out.

Having said that, if I end up getting a bunch of Netatmo Smart TRV's I think that would be too much of an investment to leave behind, just like leaving lots of Hue bulbs behind would be.

ThisRegard

Yeah, if I had the TRVs I probably would have taken them, added together they'd be an expensive piece of kit to have to replace.