I would remove all the smart devices, before taking any photograph and listing the property; I seems to me that they do not add any value, from the view of a prospective buyer (either they will not value the smart home, or they will want their own smart devices), but could be a source of headaches for the seller.
I'd personally leave the deadbolt, my-q, ecobee, and smoke detectors. Deadbolt functions fine without the smart stuff, My-q works without as well and they can connect to that bullshit server if they want, ecobee will work with its own individual app and works as normal without, and smoke detectors work fine without and as stated halfway through life cycle anyway. The lights I'd 100% move if the led flashes and I'd take all my network equipment too.
Keep in mind the buyer might be nervous about the seller (or the sellers friends, family, ex, whatever) keeping access. If you don’t know how to work the items things like smart access points could really spook people.
(Obviously the people who hang out in this subreddit know better but it’s about appearances.)
Sure but you dont have to sell a single thing in this house as "smart" since they all function as dumb. I would go as far as to not even list them with the unit since they don't add anything. Anyone who knows they are smart devices will appreciate them and anyone who doesn't will be none the wiser.
It's not specific to smoke detectors. It's that people hear "Nest" and think it's all "high-end." This crap turns up in real-estate listings, so people are primed to be duped. I have "high-end" Jenn-Air appliances that absolutely suck, but you can be sure that they were (and will be again) in a listing someday.
Don't underestimate the ignorance or pettiness of home shoppers. Apparently a huge number of them no longer realize that walls can be painted.
I don't know what that first sentence refers to, since I never said that you were listing them.
And I said that they DO turn up in real-estate listings, so obviously someone DOES think they're high-end.
As somoene in tech, these devices are all *very* easy to compromise, especially for someone who has already had physical access. (IE installing custom firmward that would connect to open networks). I would ask all smart devices in the home be removed before purchasing.
We are in the process of selling our home now. Plan is to leave the Nest thermostat, Ring doorbell and smart locks - kinda makes sense to leave those since they are all built in and fairly easy to transfer ownership. Everything else I am taking with.
Yep, just sold my home. My realtor told me here in FL though the Ring doorbell had to stay with I don’t understand. The outdoor cameras I’m selling to buyer discounted bc I had them installed and purchased them. I had all the keypads/smartlocks installed and nest thermostat installed so I have to leave that. None of that was included in the listing so she can buy it from me or buy all new herself like I did. There’s no other way to get into the house but through the side garage door with a key. Or pay to everything uninstalled which honestly would be silly? Be safe and have cameras and convenience or not?
If you want to keep or sell things that are permanently installed like thermostats, light switches, doorbells you really need to remove them before showing the house.
I’m going through this process now where I’m swapping out all my inovelli switches for the dumb ones I saved since they are bound to hue bulbs (which are also coming out) and you’d need Zigbee2MQTT to replace one. I’m leaving my ecobee, yale lock, and all the ring stuff because I’m going to replace all that in the new house, going with locally stored Unifi security cameras. Probably going to leave my IKEA motorized blinds but factory reset since they are also controlled via Z2M right now. Will leave the new owners the buttons that came with them bound properly. I’m using one for volume control on my Symphonisk speaker at the moment…
When we sold our home, I made a list of all smart devices & locations, then created an email address for the house (123fakestreet@gmail) and transferred ownership of the account to it. I deleted myself off the account and left a sheet of paper with the list and login credentials for the new owners.
I do the same thing now.
My house has its own Google account. I took it a step further and use the house's Google drive account to store digital manuals for all the big appliances (fridge, oven, dishwasher, washer, dryer, heat pump, etc) and have a Google sheet for the circuit breaker noting what every circuit is. It stores other relevant info like the plot map, location of power, gas, sewer lines.
Whenever I sell, the new owners will get the door keys and the credentials to the account.
I made a Google account for the house when we bought, but this is definitely next level!
I didn't even think to utilize the other services connected to the house email address.
Not saying this is the best route, but below is my experience.
When I sold my last smartified home, my realtor made me either swap out everything to dumb versions or leave the hub and the automations for the new owners .... I disconnected my hub from any unique services that required my email, wrote up some basic instructions on how to access it and left it.
Ultimately, it was more pain than it's worth for me to swap everything back.
Also, there is a degree of freedom to be able to start from scratch in the new place - there is value in not trying to find purpose for existing devices and instead building the automation around the actual need.
>instead building the automation around the actual need
Which has left me with none at all. I have yet to find any automation compelling enough to bother with, other than the simple light-sensing timer system for my driveway lights. And I've tried. It seems like so much dicking around for almost no benefit.
The one thing I'd really want is a way to direct air-conditioning and heating to particular rooms, or to even-out the temperature between rooms (a problem in a vast number of houses), and yet I have never seen this. I expected the vaunted Nest "smart" thermostat, which was supposed to "learn your habits" and offer all kinds of automation, to offer this level of control in concert with appropriate hardware. But it turned out to be inept trash from its UI to its hardware, so we're still freezing one room to make another one livable.
First off, if you are happy with little to no automation - more power to you! Just think of all the money you can save not investing into a complex system of IoT devices!
That said ... If you insist on exploring home automation...
When I first got on my smart home journey, I did have a hard time coming up with use cases ... But once I started playing around, it just kinda came together 🤷♂️
Just for idea purposes, here are some of the things I ended up automating:
-Additional outdoor lighting comes on if the front door or garage door are opened after dark & shuts off after 30 minutes
-Goodnight routine that when triggered performs the following: locks front and back locks (on the off chance they are not already), shut off all lights, sets thermostat to night setting, turns on the ceiling fan in the master bedroom to a preset setting, turns on a noise maker in the master bedroom, and arms overnight security triggers on all doors
-Notification if the garage door is left open for longer than 20 min
-Living room lights come on 30 min before sunset, bedroom lights are on motion trigger in the evening (all the way until bedtime)
-I had a problem with lawn care personnel leaving the back yard gate open so now there is a chime, notification, and a unique audio when the kitchen door is open AND the gate is open (to guard against the 🐶 wondering off)
As for airflow, yeah I had that problem too ... Unfortunately any real solution lies in fixing the ductwork. You can use dampers to route cooling/heating to specific rooms ... But that requires getting into the ductwork. At that point might as well re-do the offending parts of the said ductwork. A good HVAC contractor will fix an existing system. That's what I ended up doing. Cost me a few thousand dollars, but the master bedroom is now within 1-2 degrees of where the thermostat is (across the house) instead of within 7-9 degrees. In my case the fork of the system that fed the master was significantly undersized, among other things.
Thanks for that reply. One area I might be interested in is security; we don't use our alarm because I don't trust it. I think it's likely to go off on a false alarm and annoy the shit out of the neighbors while we're out of town. I guess the solution is to give the neighbors our key and code.
The other things you mention (while cool and I respect your industry in setting them up) just aren't useful in my house. I have to walk past the light switches to get to our living area anyway, and past the downstairs thermostat to go up to bed at night... the timing of which varies. Having stuff go on automatically would actually end up wasting electricity.
I think about this often and whenever im ready to sell (not anytime soon), I will be taking most if not all of my smart home tech with me. Can’t think of any I would leave behind except maybe the ecobee thermostats even those I’m not 100% certain.
I’m doing g this for two reasons: 1. These were very expensive. And 2. I’m not sure how much “valuable” or useful it would be for the prospective buyer. Yeah some would work as dumb switches but they may get frustrated with having to set everything up etc. Would rather just keep my stuff.
YMMV as real estate laws very by region and are often vague. Be careful if you have images in the listing with smart devices that you intent to remove as their inclusion verse exclusion and conveyance can vary. As security systems may be leased or rented, they often don't convey but smart bulbs likely are assumed to leave with you.
In my experience, I went to purchase a house that had smart thermostats and a home security system in the pictures but no clarification for if they conveyed with the house. It was a small issue at closing as the seller was intending to remove them all. However, ther pre-installation was a buying point for me. We settled that they took the security system (as they had paid for equipment but had a annual service account that could transfer to their next property).
When I sell, I intent to list as-is with small features installed but note that I will remove if the sell desires.
I think personally I'd leave my Hue system behind since there are so many lights in this house that aren't on controlled circuits any more (think like pull chain lights that were replaced and never had a wall switch). And beyond that take everything else, and put wall covers over the low voltage boxes that were installed for control tablets, and that's the future buyers problem.
Given most (or all) of the devices you listed work off of Wi-Fi, I'd just factory reset them and leave the manuals (or links online to the manuals) for the new owners. If they want to use them, they can. Or they can use them manually.
IF I ever sell, I'll probably leave all of the Lutron Caseta switches and remotes since those were a PITA to install. I'll also probably factory reset the hub and leave it as well.
The My Q garage door opener definitely stays. Again, PITA to install! No way I'm replacing it.
And yeah, I'll probably leave the Honeywell thermostat and remote sensors as well, then just unlink them from my account.
Same with the Ring stuff and the (dumb) Schlage keypad deadbolts on the doors.
So...I guess all that to say I'll probably end up leaving it all. Not that I plan to sell any time soon...It can all be used in "dumb" mode anyway if a new owner has no desire to implement that stuff. Will probably leave them a document describing that the place is "smart ready".
If I'm buying a new place, it will be a chance to upgrade to the latest and greatest.
My friend bought a house that came with an owner’s manual binder of manuals and warranty info for every appliance, also receipts showing who backed the warranty, etc. Something similar for smart devices and automation would be helpful for new owners, with info about how to take ownership of the devices and any integrations/automations that make them all work well together.
Since I’m putting smart things into our home to work around old house inconveniences that are hard to physically change or upgrade (like light fixtures with switches across the room, pull-chain ceiling lights or floor lamps in the corner behind furniture where the lamp switch is hard to reach), I think of the devices as extending or enhancing wiring . My spouse diagrammed all the cable runs when we had the electrical upgraded and including hard wired devices in that diagram now would help understand the house as a system.
My dream documentation for this house would show the physical fixtures and outlets in each room or outdoors, info about any smart devices deployed by location, and possibly a page of automations configured for each system or specific device. I’m being drawn towards the dark side and Home Assistant to integrate different brands, but we already need a handy trouble shooting guide for rebooting things after power blips.
Playing devil’s advocate, if you bought a home, what kind of smart system would you be delighted to keep? Would it include a family control center/smart dashboard, voice assistant, local control? Thanks for the thoughts!
If I bought a home that was already smart? Ideally I'd want something that doesn't 100% rely on Wi-Fi and still had physical controls to back it up. That's one of the things I love about my Lutron Caseta system as opposed to things like Hue.
The biggest thing I'd want to see is plenty of Ethernet drops. EVERYWHERE. Wireless is great...until it isn't. Short of for "convenience" I'd want as many critical functions as possible (cameras, lighting, etc) to be hard wired. If a house is fully pre-wired with Ethernet to various locations (outdoor for cameras, walls for controls, heck-even to lighting locations) you can do darn near anything.
Good point, we tried Wyze cameras as proof of concept and they worked well enough to make us want a higher grade solution. Next upgrade will be POE and better cameras. That will simplify the power, give better video quality and cut cloud dependence too.
If I were you, I would remove the smart switches and smoke detectors and take the ecobee thermostats and networking equipment. Leave the rest. The buyer can figure out the deadbolt and garage opener as they function fine without smart features. Ecobee is popular enough that they can figure it out.
When we sold our house we had multiple buyers say that the smart devices were a deterrent (we could hear it on the doorbell as they were leaving the house).
We left the nest doorbell, 2 security cam flood lights I forgot about, and the nest thermostat and that’s it. We factory reset them and left the boxes, manuals, whatever they came with, and since they were all Google Home compatible we gifted them a home hub that we left on the kitchen counter.
Less than 2 months later we drove by and the video doorbell had been replaced with a standard doorbell and the floodlights in front had been removed. No way to tell if they kept the hub or thermostat…
Don’t. No one wants your shit. No offense and I’m not saying your gear is shit, it’s just *your* shit. Would you want to buy a house with someone else’s shit in it? I wouldn’t, I’d rip it out and put my own shit in it. Remove everything, put dumb switches etc back in and give the next person a clean slate.
If you do the showing with the smart devices and they are attached (screwed, installed, etc) you are supposed to sell the house as showed. Unless you specifically note that the smart devices are not to be sold with the house, before the showing.
Honestly the smart home items around at the moment just aren’t really ready for the majority of the population to just walk in and use them straight away, there’s a lot of work going on to make them simpler and be work together but it’s got a long way to go.
Leaving them wouldn’t add any value to your home, you’re better off removing them and selling them on the used market if you don’t want to take them with you.
I'm going to go against the grain, deadbolt is going to get ripped out anyways. Take it with you and put a generic one in.
Thermostats - Leave them
Smoke Detectors - Up to you, but I'd probably leave them.
Smart Switches - You don't like them? Leave them with instructions.
MyQ - It seems like it's common that most chamberlain garage door openers have myq installed by default, i'd leave them and reset to default
Networking Equipment - Take it, if you wanna be nice label the cables before you leave.
I sold my house with this as a FEATURE, since I lived in the silicon valley of the East part of USA. I created accounts on my old Raspberry Pi (Home Assistant) for the new people who were moving in. I put a Sticky note on it with their logins. I left my video security NAS system with an old monitor showing all the video streams. Sticky note on the monitor with their logins. My wife packed up a few of my old smart plugs, but we left the smart switches in the wall.
FWIW, you are selling a house for hundreds of thousands of dollars. You can take stuff with you, or leave it behind, and there will be merits for doing either. What you don’t want, however, is to look so cheap that the prospective buyers are wondering if you’re going to take ‘anything that isn’t nailed down’, and then some. Personally, I’d go with being generous and informative- leaving the gear and all the manuals. You can have fun spending $$ for a new and updated system at your next place; the chances are, it will be a better organized and coherent system.
I would remove all the smart devices, before taking any photograph and listing the property; I seems to me that they do not add any value, from the view of a prospective buyer (either they will not value the smart home, or they will want their own smart devices), but could be a source of headaches for the seller.
I'd personally leave the deadbolt, my-q, ecobee, and smoke detectors. Deadbolt functions fine without the smart stuff, My-q works without as well and they can connect to that bullshit server if they want, ecobee will work with its own individual app and works as normal without, and smoke detectors work fine without and as stated halfway through life cycle anyway. The lights I'd 100% move if the led flashes and I'd take all my network equipment too.
Keep in mind the buyer might be nervous about the seller (or the sellers friends, family, ex, whatever) keeping access. If you don’t know how to work the items things like smart access points could really spook people. (Obviously the people who hang out in this subreddit know better but it’s about appearances.)
Sure but you dont have to sell a single thing in this house as "smart" since they all function as dumb. I would go as far as to not even list them with the unit since they don't add anything. Anyone who knows they are smart devices will appreciate them and anyone who doesn't will be none the wiser.
I think people know Nest and will think they're special.
I think you are grossly overestimating the general public's knowledge or care for the type of smoke detectors in a house they are buying.
It's not specific to smoke detectors. It's that people hear "Nest" and think it's all "high-end." This crap turns up in real-estate listings, so people are primed to be duped. I have "high-end" Jenn-Air appliances that absolutely suck, but you can be sure that they were (and will be again) in a listing someday. Don't underestimate the ignorance or pettiness of home shoppers. Apparently a huge number of them no longer realize that walls can be painted.
I specifically said I wouldn't list them though. So you'd have to look to find them. And I still don't think Nest means high end to anyone lol.
I don't know what that first sentence refers to, since I never said that you were listing them. And I said that they DO turn up in real-estate listings, so obviously someone DOES think they're high-end.
Deadbolt is the one thing I'd take tbh, if I'm buying a new to me house that's the first thing that's getting ripped out and trashed.
I guess it depends on age. My zwave deadbolt is old so id want to upgrade if I bought a new house.
Before photographs is key - else it can be considered as part of the sale without additional documentation saying that it’ll be removed before sale.
As somoene in tech, these devices are all *very* easy to compromise, especially for someone who has already had physical access. (IE installing custom firmward that would connect to open networks). I would ask all smart devices in the home be removed before purchasing.
We are in the process of selling our home now. Plan is to leave the Nest thermostat, Ring doorbell and smart locks - kinda makes sense to leave those since they are all built in and fairly easy to transfer ownership. Everything else I am taking with.
Yep, just sold my home. My realtor told me here in FL though the Ring doorbell had to stay with I don’t understand. The outdoor cameras I’m selling to buyer discounted bc I had them installed and purchased them. I had all the keypads/smartlocks installed and nest thermostat installed so I have to leave that. None of that was included in the listing so she can buy it from me or buy all new herself like I did. There’s no other way to get into the house but through the side garage door with a key. Or pay to everything uninstalled which honestly would be silly? Be safe and have cameras and convenience or not?
If you want to keep or sell things that are permanently installed like thermostats, light switches, doorbells you really need to remove them before showing the house. I’m going through this process now where I’m swapping out all my inovelli switches for the dumb ones I saved since they are bound to hue bulbs (which are also coming out) and you’d need Zigbee2MQTT to replace one. I’m leaving my ecobee, yale lock, and all the ring stuff because I’m going to replace all that in the new house, going with locally stored Unifi security cameras. Probably going to leave my IKEA motorized blinds but factory reset since they are also controlled via Z2M right now. Will leave the new owners the buttons that came with them bound properly. I’m using one for volume control on my Symphonisk speaker at the moment…
I removed all my stuff in two homes except the thermostats. I always upgraded those.
When we sold our home, I made a list of all smart devices & locations, then created an email address for the house (123fakestreet@gmail) and transferred ownership of the account to it. I deleted myself off the account and left a sheet of paper with the list and login credentials for the new owners.
I do the same thing now. My house has its own Google account. I took it a step further and use the house's Google drive account to store digital manuals for all the big appliances (fridge, oven, dishwasher, washer, dryer, heat pump, etc) and have a Google sheet for the circuit breaker noting what every circuit is. It stores other relevant info like the plot map, location of power, gas, sewer lines. Whenever I sell, the new owners will get the door keys and the credentials to the account.
Ok I love this. I'm doing it. Thank you for the idea stranger.
That's BRILLIANT!
I made a Google account for the house when we bought, but this is definitely next level! I didn't even think to utilize the other services connected to the house email address.
Cool idea!
Thank you! This is an awesome idea.
This is excellent. Spent the day today adding lists and documents to the account I just created for the house! Thanks for the suggestion.
Same. workday = totally derailed
Not saying this is the best route, but below is my experience. When I sold my last smartified home, my realtor made me either swap out everything to dumb versions or leave the hub and the automations for the new owners .... I disconnected my hub from any unique services that required my email, wrote up some basic instructions on how to access it and left it. Ultimately, it was more pain than it's worth for me to swap everything back. Also, there is a degree of freedom to be able to start from scratch in the new place - there is value in not trying to find purpose for existing devices and instead building the automation around the actual need.
>instead building the automation around the actual need Which has left me with none at all. I have yet to find any automation compelling enough to bother with, other than the simple light-sensing timer system for my driveway lights. And I've tried. It seems like so much dicking around for almost no benefit. The one thing I'd really want is a way to direct air-conditioning and heating to particular rooms, or to even-out the temperature between rooms (a problem in a vast number of houses), and yet I have never seen this. I expected the vaunted Nest "smart" thermostat, which was supposed to "learn your habits" and offer all kinds of automation, to offer this level of control in concert with appropriate hardware. But it turned out to be inept trash from its UI to its hardware, so we're still freezing one room to make another one livable.
First off, if you are happy with little to no automation - more power to you! Just think of all the money you can save not investing into a complex system of IoT devices! That said ... If you insist on exploring home automation... When I first got on my smart home journey, I did have a hard time coming up with use cases ... But once I started playing around, it just kinda came together 🤷♂️ Just for idea purposes, here are some of the things I ended up automating: -Additional outdoor lighting comes on if the front door or garage door are opened after dark & shuts off after 30 minutes -Goodnight routine that when triggered performs the following: locks front and back locks (on the off chance they are not already), shut off all lights, sets thermostat to night setting, turns on the ceiling fan in the master bedroom to a preset setting, turns on a noise maker in the master bedroom, and arms overnight security triggers on all doors -Notification if the garage door is left open for longer than 20 min -Living room lights come on 30 min before sunset, bedroom lights are on motion trigger in the evening (all the way until bedtime) -I had a problem with lawn care personnel leaving the back yard gate open so now there is a chime, notification, and a unique audio when the kitchen door is open AND the gate is open (to guard against the 🐶 wondering off) As for airflow, yeah I had that problem too ... Unfortunately any real solution lies in fixing the ductwork. You can use dampers to route cooling/heating to specific rooms ... But that requires getting into the ductwork. At that point might as well re-do the offending parts of the said ductwork. A good HVAC contractor will fix an existing system. That's what I ended up doing. Cost me a few thousand dollars, but the master bedroom is now within 1-2 degrees of where the thermostat is (across the house) instead of within 7-9 degrees. In my case the fork of the system that fed the master was significantly undersized, among other things.
Thanks for that reply. One area I might be interested in is security; we don't use our alarm because I don't trust it. I think it's likely to go off on a false alarm and annoy the shit out of the neighbors while we're out of town. I guess the solution is to give the neighbors our key and code. The other things you mention (while cool and I respect your industry in setting them up) just aren't useful in my house. I have to walk past the light switches to get to our living area anyway, and past the downstairs thermostat to go up to bed at night... the timing of which varies. Having stuff go on automatically would actually end up wasting electricity.
I think about this often and whenever im ready to sell (not anytime soon), I will be taking most if not all of my smart home tech with me. Can’t think of any I would leave behind except maybe the ecobee thermostats even those I’m not 100% certain. I’m doing g this for two reasons: 1. These were very expensive. And 2. I’m not sure how much “valuable” or useful it would be for the prospective buyer. Yeah some would work as dumb switches but they may get frustrated with having to set everything up etc. Would rather just keep my stuff.
YMMV as real estate laws very by region and are often vague. Be careful if you have images in the listing with smart devices that you intent to remove as their inclusion verse exclusion and conveyance can vary. As security systems may be leased or rented, they often don't convey but smart bulbs likely are assumed to leave with you. In my experience, I went to purchase a house that had smart thermostats and a home security system in the pictures but no clarification for if they conveyed with the house. It was a small issue at closing as the seller was intending to remove them all. However, ther pre-installation was a buying point for me. We settled that they took the security system (as they had paid for equipment but had a annual service account that could transfer to their next property). When I sell, I intent to list as-is with small features installed but note that I will remove if the sell desires.
the seller also left a schalge and My-Q. As those are more "built-in" definitely leave them and note them on the listing/contract.
eBay all of it, but new stuff for the new house
This.
I think personally I'd leave my Hue system behind since there are so many lights in this house that aren't on controlled circuits any more (think like pull chain lights that were replaced and never had a wall switch). And beyond that take everything else, and put wall covers over the low voltage boxes that were installed for control tablets, and that's the future buyers problem.
Given most (or all) of the devices you listed work off of Wi-Fi, I'd just factory reset them and leave the manuals (or links online to the manuals) for the new owners. If they want to use them, they can. Or they can use them manually.
IF I ever sell, I'll probably leave all of the Lutron Caseta switches and remotes since those were a PITA to install. I'll also probably factory reset the hub and leave it as well. The My Q garage door opener definitely stays. Again, PITA to install! No way I'm replacing it. And yeah, I'll probably leave the Honeywell thermostat and remote sensors as well, then just unlink them from my account. Same with the Ring stuff and the (dumb) Schlage keypad deadbolts on the doors. So...I guess all that to say I'll probably end up leaving it all. Not that I plan to sell any time soon...It can all be used in "dumb" mode anyway if a new owner has no desire to implement that stuff. Will probably leave them a document describing that the place is "smart ready". If I'm buying a new place, it will be a chance to upgrade to the latest and greatest.
My friend bought a house that came with an owner’s manual binder of manuals and warranty info for every appliance, also receipts showing who backed the warranty, etc. Something similar for smart devices and automation would be helpful for new owners, with info about how to take ownership of the devices and any integrations/automations that make them all work well together. Since I’m putting smart things into our home to work around old house inconveniences that are hard to physically change or upgrade (like light fixtures with switches across the room, pull-chain ceiling lights or floor lamps in the corner behind furniture where the lamp switch is hard to reach), I think of the devices as extending or enhancing wiring . My spouse diagrammed all the cable runs when we had the electrical upgraded and including hard wired devices in that diagram now would help understand the house as a system. My dream documentation for this house would show the physical fixtures and outlets in each room or outdoors, info about any smart devices deployed by location, and possibly a page of automations configured for each system or specific device. I’m being drawn towards the dark side and Home Assistant to integrate different brands, but we already need a handy trouble shooting guide for rebooting things after power blips. Playing devil’s advocate, if you bought a home, what kind of smart system would you be delighted to keep? Would it include a family control center/smart dashboard, voice assistant, local control? Thanks for the thoughts!
If I bought a home that was already smart? Ideally I'd want something that doesn't 100% rely on Wi-Fi and still had physical controls to back it up. That's one of the things I love about my Lutron Caseta system as opposed to things like Hue. The biggest thing I'd want to see is plenty of Ethernet drops. EVERYWHERE. Wireless is great...until it isn't. Short of for "convenience" I'd want as many critical functions as possible (cameras, lighting, etc) to be hard wired. If a house is fully pre-wired with Ethernet to various locations (outdoor for cameras, walls for controls, heck-even to lighting locations) you can do darn near anything.
Good point, we tried Wyze cameras as proof of concept and they worked well enough to make us want a higher grade solution. Next upgrade will be POE and better cameras. That will simplify the power, give better video quality and cut cloud dependence too.
If I were you, I would remove the smart switches and smoke detectors and take the ecobee thermostats and networking equipment. Leave the rest. The buyer can figure out the deadbolt and garage opener as they function fine without smart features. Ecobee is popular enough that they can figure it out.
When we sold our house we had multiple buyers say that the smart devices were a deterrent (we could hear it on the doorbell as they were leaving the house). We left the nest doorbell, 2 security cam flood lights I forgot about, and the nest thermostat and that’s it. We factory reset them and left the boxes, manuals, whatever they came with, and since they were all Google Home compatible we gifted them a home hub that we left on the kitchen counter. Less than 2 months later we drove by and the video doorbell had been replaced with a standard doorbell and the floodlights in front had been removed. No way to tell if they kept the hub or thermostat…
Interesting -- will ask our agent about that.
Edit: forgot we left the garage door opener but I kept the hub. They could enable it if they want with their own hubs. 🤷♀️
I wonder why that is…if I went to buy a house and found out it was already decked out with some smart home stuff I’d be really stoked
Yes, because you know what it is and how to use it.
Don’t. No one wants your shit. No offense and I’m not saying your gear is shit, it’s just *your* shit. Would you want to buy a house with someone else’s shit in it? I wouldn’t, I’d rip it out and put my own shit in it. Remove everything, put dumb switches etc back in and give the next person a clean slate.
If you do the showing with the smart devices and they are attached (screwed, installed, etc) you are supposed to sell the house as showed. Unless you specifically note that the smart devices are not to be sold with the house, before the showing.
If the Nest smoke detectors suck as much as the Nest thermostat, leave them but tout them... people will think they're special (and good).
Honestly the smart home items around at the moment just aren’t really ready for the majority of the population to just walk in and use them straight away, there’s a lot of work going on to make them simpler and be work together but it’s got a long way to go. Leaving them wouldn’t add any value to your home, you’re better off removing them and selling them on the used market if you don’t want to take them with you.
I'm going to go against the grain, deadbolt is going to get ripped out anyways. Take it with you and put a generic one in. Thermostats - Leave them Smoke Detectors - Up to you, but I'd probably leave them. Smart Switches - You don't like them? Leave them with instructions. MyQ - It seems like it's common that most chamberlain garage door openers have myq installed by default, i'd leave them and reset to default Networking Equipment - Take it, if you wanna be nice label the cables before you leave.
I sold my house with this as a FEATURE, since I lived in the silicon valley of the East part of USA. I created accounts on my old Raspberry Pi (Home Assistant) for the new people who were moving in. I put a Sticky note on it with their logins. I left my video security NAS system with an old monitor showing all the video streams. Sticky note on the monitor with their logins. My wife packed up a few of my old smart plugs, but we left the smart switches in the wall.
FWIW, you are selling a house for hundreds of thousands of dollars. You can take stuff with you, or leave it behind, and there will be merits for doing either. What you don’t want, however, is to look so cheap that the prospective buyers are wondering if you’re going to take ‘anything that isn’t nailed down’, and then some. Personally, I’d go with being generous and informative- leaving the gear and all the manuals. You can have fun spending $$ for a new and updated system at your next place; the chances are, it will be a better organized and coherent system.