Okay, so when we die.....

[glacier991]

I know is sounds kinda maudlin as the thread progresses..... but I recently read a thread by a user who was seeking someone to maintain his system for a purchaser of his home for the new owner. Zilch responses.

I never really thought about what happens when we, the guru's of our own HA systems, die, and what happens to our systems after. 

By way of history, I started in HA early, in the 70's with X-10, and had a pretty robust system using a CM-15 controller in a house I built near Lake Tahoe CA in the 90's.  I went whole hog, lots of programs and actions...and it worked more or less pretty well. (In retrospect it worked better than I had a right to think it would but I was young and knew everything, right?)

When I sold that house, at the buyer's request, I pulled out all the stuff that was HA, mainly. I ended up with a few boxes of stuff, some of which I still have and some of that I am using.... but not much.

I inherited a lovely home in NW Montana and ended up, due to a minor disaster prior to my receiving the house, mostly rebuilding large portions of the damaged home and remodeling/updating in- the process. I wired the house in Cat 6 ethernet and paid attention to HA aspects as I was rebuilding where possible. I had switched to ISY by 2018 and had a relatively small system in my newly inherited house as my attention was diverted to remodeling projects (like... MAJOR ones). I recently (like this week) moved to eisy from my prior ISY system. It is time to turn my attention back to HA as I install my new eisy based HA system.

Of note...I turn 73 next week.

I find myself in a somewhat reflective mode as I am building my new HA system (I decided to start fresh, not migrate). How much is too much? what is useful and good? What is too much? 

But the BIG issue is, unless the system will run itself, who will (could/can/want to) maintain it as time goes forward? When I die (no I am not expecting any demise before my likely death some 10-15 years hence) there will no one to remove/operate it.

For now I am trying to install things that can exist even if my eisy were turned off. But, I think the question is one worthy of discussion here. Future proofing or future planning.

How do we plan systems to survive us?

I would love to hear folks ideas on this.

Chris

ps. A fully HA home could be considered by some a detriment, not a plus.

 

 

Edited January 14 by glacier991
Additions. Corrections

[paulbates]

I'm in a similar situation. This past summer I sold my house of over 20 years. I started with X10 including 2 X10 thermostats. Migrated to Insteon devices that responded to x10 and then Insteon. 3 different Home Automation systems.  I digress

Here's what I did

• Created a gmail account for the house
  • Anything that needed email for login, including ISY portal.. themostats, rainmachine ,  etc were given that email address, not my personal
  • The email account can be turned over to new owner, relatives
• I use a password manager for all passwords. There's a folder in that for anything HA. My new wife knows it's in there. She's not ready to deal with it technically other than find someone and give them the passwords
• I created a google sheet with all Insteon and other devices. Included IDs, Insteon IDS,  etc.  Indicated what room, special notes
• When I sold my last house, I create a 2 page google doc and gave the link to the buyer that was a flipper.  It gave a list of what there was, id info, logins. 
  • No idea how much he did, but I looked at Zillow pictures when he "flipped" the house, and keypad lincs and switchlincs were in the pictures
  • I'm 3+ months into the new-to-me house, still automating so haven't started it here.   

 

 

 

 

[gviliunas]

I look at HA as more of a decorative feature of the home. Yes, we could no longer live without our "invisible hand" turning lights on and off, fans responding to our every humidity whim, and are team of personal servants (Alexa, Echo, Computer, Ziggy, and Amazon) ready to help as servants do (or do not!). Funny, there are (actually) those among us who prefer to apply electrons the old-fashioned way.

I decorate my home for me with little thought of the next buyer. Love me love my HA is not my mantra. Life is short. Live for my own  enjoyment. The next buyer can either expand on my vision, suffer over my "hallucination" , or just give-up and pull the whole darn thing out. I am never going to stress over their decision much as I'm sure my seller never stressed over leaving me green shag carpets. e-gad!

[glacier991]

2 hours ago, gviliunas said:

I am never going to stress over their decision much as I'm sure my seller never stressed over leaving me green shag carpets.

I inherited my current home from my parents.... green shag carpet and all.!

[glacier991]

Paul Bates:  Thank you for those ideas.... think i will do likewise.

[glacier991]

In the FWIW category, I find myself doing less as I automate this house.... mainly fewer motion sensed activities and fewer of the more involved programming. In other words, less of the IFTT kind of stuff.

[jec6613]

If you rip out my Polisy and all of my automation glue tomorrow, everything still works fine.  I'd loose schedules, and motion activation might not work on all of the lights, but everything still works the way it did when I bought the house, just with more expensive dimmers instead of cheap toggle switches.  I had a period where a Polisy bug left it effectively a brick for a week ... it was annoying to walk around again, but everything worked great.

[glacier991]

I rather think that is the key, if you think that either succession to non HA geeks or new people is the end result-  is to install a "normal future proof" setup.

Gotta admit though, that I really enjoy(ed) tinkering around the edges.

Edited January 14 by glacier991

[glacier991]

3 hours ago, gviliunas said:

I look at HA as more of a decorative feature of the home. Yes, we could no longer live without our "invisible hand" turning lights on and off, fans responding to our every humidity whim, and are team of personal servants (Alexa, Echo, Computer, Ziggy, and Amazon) ready to help as servants do (or do not!). Funny, there are (actually) those among us who prefer to apply electrons the old-fashioned way.

I decorate my home for me with little thought of the next buyer. Love me love my HA is not my mantra. Life is short. Live for my own  enjoyment. The next buyer can either expand on my vision, suffer over my "hallucination" , or just give-up and pull the whole darn thing out. I am never going to stress over their decision much as I'm sure my seller never stressed over leaving me green shag carpets. e-gad!

An interesting observation. Thanks for sharing. I do not wholly disagree. It  is just that horrendous wallpaper or an offensive picture or paint job is different than a system that appears to turn things on or off unexpectedly or fail to do the usual expected when you flip a switch etc.  It is maybe a wholly different genre of problem - one the new occupant is ill equipped to fix.

Edited January 14 by glacier991

[xlurkr]

I've been living in the same place for >30 years, and I can imagine moving out in the next 5-10.  I've always planned on needing to hire an electrician to restore all the switches to dumb ones.  The thermostat is an Insteon-upgraded Venstar, so I'll remove the adapter and leave the manual for it.  The only other thing that's embedded is in-wall and in-ceiling speakers, and I guess we'll have to negotiate whether they stay, or I take them out and have someone patch the drywall.  Probably the latter.  Everything else in my automated world is easily unplugged and removed.

-Tom

[Andy P]

Just for fun, I did a couple searches and came across this quote "A recent survey shows that about 81% of real estate purchasers would be more inclined to buy a house if it came along with smart technology products."

But then I went searching for that quote and came across this: "81 percent of current smart-home device owners say they would be more willing to buy a home with connected tech in place" which sounds more accurate (emphasis added to 'current'.)

I, for one, take solace in the fact that 2 of our children have inherited the smart home bug and are heavily into it in their own homes, so that won't help the next owner of my house, but would help if I can no longer take care of it.

 

[paulbates]

Like some of the comments above, some of my automation will still go schedule & controller-less. 

In both my last house and current house I have virtual circuits that tie switches together to make lighting make sense and more convenient Also leak sensors and sump pump depth alarm tied to a siren module. Because they are Insteon they will continue to work as installed, eisy or no eisy.

If they wanted to keep the eisy, I also recently added an ecobee thermostat that can function as an amazon echo and voice activate lights. That's not my thing, but to @Andy P's 80% comment, I think many people do like it so it could be a selling point when it's time to sell. My wife likes automation so far, after I finish my main projects I might turn it on and see how well it's received.

Edited January 14 by paulbates

[Goose66]

This is one major advantage of Insteon: much of this automation works completely without controllers and programs and cloud services and such. When I sold my house a couple of years ago, the new buyers wanted the “automation” with it. While I had some pool control from Keypadlincs, voice commands via Alexa, and schedules facilitated through ISY, most of the “automation” was Insteon links and scenes. In fact, contrary to @jec6613, if I had removed many of the Insteon Keypadlincs and SwitchLincs (and specifically their scene configurations) most of my floodlights, driveway entry lights, landscape and pool deck lighting, some sconces in the master bedroom, grill lights, pool house lighting, etc. would have all stopped working (or at least not been controllable).

I also had an email address for the home, and, because we had lots of guests whether we were there or not, I had a “book of the house,” that I maintained on a regular basis that had operating instructions and technical details included (along with maintenance schedules and tips, paint colors, and the like). I left the ISY994i and the book of the house with the new owners - they were much appreciative.

[lilyoyo1]

14 hours ago, glacier991 said:

I know is sounds kinda maudlin as the thread progresses..... but I recently read a thread by a user who was seeking someone to maintain his system for a purchaser of his home for the new owner. Zilch responses.

I never really thought about what happens when we, the guru's of our own HA systems, die, and what happens to our systems after. 

By way of history, I started in HA early, in the 70's with X-10, and had a pretty robust system using a CM-15 controller in a house I built near Lake Tahoe CA in the 90's.  I went whole hog, lots of programs and actions...and it worked more or less pretty well. (In retrospect it worked better than I had a right to think it would but I was young and knew everything, right?)

When I sold that house, at the buyer's request, I pulled out all the stuff that was HA, mainly. I ended up with a few boxes of stuff, some of which I still have and some of that I am using.... but not much.

I inherited a lovely home in NW Montana and ended up, due to a minor disaster prior to my receiving the house, mostly rebuilding large portions of the damaged home and remodeling/updating in- the process. I wired the house in Cat 6 ethernet and paid attention to HA aspects as I was rebuilding where possible. I had switched to ISY by 2018 and had a relatively small system in my newly inherited house as my attention was diverted to remodeling projects (like... MAJOR ones). I recently (like this week) moved to eisy from my prior ISY system. It is time to turn my attention back to HA as I install my new eisy based HA system.

Of note...I turn 73 next week.

I find myself in a somewhat reflective mode as I am building my new HA system (I decided to start fresh, not migrate). How much is too much? what is useful and good? What is too much? 

But the BIG issue is, unless the system will run itself, who will (could/can/want to) maintain it as time goes forward? When I die (no I am not expecting any demise before my likely death some 10-15 years hence) there will no one to remove/operate it.

For now I am trying to install things that can exist even if my eisy were turned off. But, I think the question is one worthy of discussion here. Future proofing or future planning.

How do we plan systems to survive us?

I would love to hear folks ideas on this.

Chris

ps. A fully HA home could be considered by some a detriment, not a plus.

 

 

Part of the downside to using diy systems is limited local knowledge of how it works vs pro level systems where any dealer can maintain or re-program a house .

I've always designed my house to function without a controller per se. My controller enhances the experience but everything works without it as well. I'm lucky that I do have people that my wife could call if something happened to me suddenly. Even outside of that (when I used Polisy), I showed her how to add/replace a bad bulb in the hue app so she wouldn't need to log into polisy to change anything. Even though lamp outlets weren't used, they were still part of the system and labeled so they could easily be added to the respective scene of she ever wanted to set things back to normal. The ease of this was shown when we moved. It took less than 2 hours to remove automation but keep things semi-smart.

I sold my old home with everything in it but took the polisy with me. All I needed to do was replace the hue bulbs in the lamps  and add the outlets they were in back into the scenes. 

Everything else works on their own or through my qolsys panel. I added my zwave door locks to my qolsys IQ panel so the new owners still have some control over those. My hue outdoor lights worked on simple timers anyway so I just had to set that up on the app. Everything else works on their own such as my garage doors (which can also be added to the panel) and Thermostats (ecobee). 

 

[jec6613]

2 hours ago, Goose66 said:

if I had removed many of the Insteon Keypadlincs and SwitchLincs (and specifically their scene configurations) most of my floodlights, driveway entry lights, landscape and pool deck lighting, some sconces in the master bedroom, grill lights, pool house lighting, etc. would have all stopped working (or at least not been controllable

Not contrary to how I'm set up, same thing here.  Paired switches for 3-way are a thing, after all!  It's without the PLM and Polisy that things would still work, not without the rest of the house.

[Goose66]

2 hours ago, jec6613 said:

Not contrary to how I'm set up, same thing here.  Paired switches for 3-way are a thing, after all!  It's without the PLM and Polisy that things would still work, not without the rest of the house.

I was referring to some retrofit lighting added to the house and pool house that was totally implemented with Insteon bulbs, FanLinvs, InlineLincs, and micro dimmers. Had the linked KeypadLincs or slave SwitchLincs been removed or the Insteon links reset, this lighting would have become non-functional. 

Edited January 14 by Goose66

[matapan]

Like any complex endeavor in life we individually or collectively engage in, keeping organized, well written documentation that is easily accessible is paramount. The documentation needs to be useful to its intended audience and address the central concerns one would have when placed in their role.

With respect to an Insteon setup, inventorying the devices in the house with specific details like the hardware version and date code, along with the device relationships (like scenes) and references in programs can be useful to someone unfamiliar with the system.

Documenting scenes and programs and what they do or how they function can also be useful to a new homeowner.

All this could be stored in an online repository (think Google Drive or Microsoft’s equivalent) with a unique username only tied to the house. Keeping documentation like pdfs of user manuals in the repository can be helpful, especially if any external web source for that documentation were to suddenly disappear.

It’s important to make it a habit to update the repository as things evolve with one’s HA setup to maintain the information’s accuracy and integrity.

Documenting troubleshooting and maintenance steps in the repository, along with a main webpage for the repository can provide enough information for someone unfamiliar with the system, be it a new homeowner, electrician, or handyman to make educated guesses on any work they may have to perform on the system sometime in the future.

when you sell a house you can give the new owner the keys to the repository and have some comfort you are not leaving the owner in the lurch.

If the setup was professionally installed, all any professional Home Automation installation outfit worth their salt would provide that documentation as a badge of integrity. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s human nature to hold on to that information in attempt to lock in future business - maintenance. That’s fine if the company is there to provide the service and the owner is willing to pay for it, but often times companies go belly up or disappear or some owners aren’t willing to cough up the asking price for service or maintenance. After all, isn’t this why companies like Insteon exist in the first place, to cater to the DIY crowd in addition potentially to installers?

Edited January 14 by matapan

[dbwarner5]

My wife has a simpler idea.... first call when I die wont be to family, it will be to the  electrician.. rip it all out.. lol 

 

[larryllix]

1 hour ago, dbwarner5 said:

My wife has a simpler idea.... first call when I die wont be to family, it will be to the  electrician.. rip it all out.. lol 

 

I know the feeling. However my wife knows if it was all disconnected, very few bulbs would work and dimming 10 lamps individually and having to turn on a lamp in the middle of the night to do a bathroom run would be a hardship.

Oldest son, being in the industry and a University trained and degree'd systems analyst, refuses to write any code for the last 15 years so that would be out.

hmmmm..maybe my 40 years of babbling (delete cursing)  made some impression with her?.......not likely....yes dear.

Edited January 14 by larryllix

[Michel Kohanim]

I have a solution!

Put a small card on 994/eisy/polisy with the following:

IT IS TIME TO UPGRADE THIS UNIT. CONTACT UD. 

😉

With kind regards,
Michel

[KSchex]

Together with the ISY and Z Wave the larger part of my HA is my hardware and software designs.  At one point I considered this and started to document everything.  Then I realized there is no way my family could deal with this.  Call the electrician!

[larryllix]

Should we be putting a special clause in our wills to allocate some funds for home automation maintenance for the next ten years?

[glacier991]

Right after the clause paying for cat food until fluffy dies.

[bhihifi]

This hit home (sorry) for me. Either in the event of my demise or relocation to a more age-appropriate home, I need to make a succession plan for my setup.

I have a mix of Z-wave and Insteon devices with the Polisy, Zmatter and a USB PLM to communicate.

My only programs turn things on and off at specific times; I use scenes and voice commands with Alexa. I haven't gotten into more sophisticated programming.

My alarm system has Z-wave capabilities. I have not enrolled my Zmatter devices with the alarm system.

I am pondering options:

1. Only have Insteon devices and leave a Hub behind for the next owner. This would mean swapping out some Z-wave devices but I have only 5-6 of them in use. The only reason for the Hub would be to allow voice commands for the next owner and scene management for the 6-button switches in some places.

2. Leave the mixed bag with Polisy setup and let the next owner figure it out. With documentation, of course. I update all the switches and scenes configuration via the Polisy topology export.

3. Leave the Insteon switches to communicate with each other without a hub. Let the next owner add the Z-wave to the alarm system or implement something else. The Polisy scenes that mix Z-wave and Insteon devices will no longer work.

Would appreciate your feedback on these options.

 

[larryllix]

This hit home (sorry) for me. Either in the event of my demise or relocation to a more age-appropriate home, I need to make a succession plan for my setup.
I have a mix of Z-wave and Insteon devices with the Polisy, Zmatter and a USB PLM to communicate.
My only programs turn things on and off at specific times; I use scenes and voice commands with Alexa. I haven't gotten into more sophisticated programming.
My alarm system has Z-wave capabilities. I have not enrolled my Zmatter devices with the alarm system.
I am pondering options:
1. Only have Insteon devices and leave a Hub behind for the next owner. This would mean swapping out some Z-wave devices but I have only 5-6 of them in use. The only reason for the Hub would be to allow voice commands for the next owner and scene management for the 6-button switches in some places.
2. Leave the mixed bag with Polisy setup and let the next owner figure it out. With documentation, of course. I update all the switches and scenes configuration via the Polisy topology export.
3. Leave the Insteon switches to communicate with each other without a hub. Let the next owner add the Z-wave to the alarm system or implement something else. The Polisy scenes that mix Z-wave and Insteon devices will no longer work.
Would appreciate your feedback on these options.
 

4. Remo e the system and save the $10k bargaining chip against your home price that the new owner will demand to pay an electrician to remove the 'complicated gadgets'.

Of course this is an area dependent subject but most home automation people do not want somebody else's mess and only want what they themselves have put in, as a hobby.

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