NY magazine interviewed me this week...

[IVB]

http://nymag.com/selectall/smarthome/extreme-makeover-smart-home-edition.html



Alas I was in the last few days of my 18 month travel project so only had a little time to brag but got some stuff out there ...

 

[mikefamig]

Very neat.
 
I've always been afraid to automate my house for two reasons. The first is that being in my 60's I'm concerned with selling the house if/when we downsize and second becasue I don't think that I'll want to maintain a large system. I was raised on the KISS principal. I do have UPB lighting but only six carefully chosen switches.
 
Mike.

 

[mikefamig]

We have neighbors of 25 years with your surname who just recently moved but I have never met their children being that they were grown when we moved into the neighborhood. Any chance you have family in Connecticut?
 
Mike.

 

[IVB]

We have neighbors of 25 years with your surname who just recently moved but I have never met their children being that they were grown when we moved into the neighborhood. Any chance you have family in Connecticut?
 
Mike.

Oh that's not my real last name. No chance am I going to tell a national audience that, my location, and what I have. That's a small portion of what I can do. I used the same name as when I won the zwave rock star thing years back (http://zwaveworld.com/2011/all-z-wave-articles/how-to/get-started-the-easy-way/z-wave-rock-star-contest-winner/)

That Jason guy is braver than I am. Real name, location, company, family status, and where he'll be on the weekends. I'm betting his wife or parents are pissed.

 

[IVB]

Very neat.
 
I've always been afraid to automate my house for two reasons. The first is that being in my 60's I'm concerned with selling the house if/when we downsize and second becasue I don't think that I'll want to maintain a large system. I was raised on the KISS principal. I do have UPB lighting but only six carefully chosen switches.
 
Mike.

I have mine set up to have wiring be the only lasting item, and in the SF bay area that's a selling point. I'm stripping all equipment and switches out if I ever sell.

 

[pete_c]

Very nice article IVB.
 
Here know today (over 60 today) that my automation in the 1990's compensated for my OCD. 
 
It was relating to shutting the garage door automatically when leaving the house in the morning for work back then.
 
For a bit; the automation itself was compensating for my OCD then I went OCD on my automation.
 
Well now today (after 60) have it but really no dependencies on it.  I write that but much of the automation (heartbeat) of the home is like a reflex.
 
Again I mention age here as I prefer to use my built in 5 senses to feel comfortable that they still function fine today and prefer not to be automated by my automation.  That's me though.

 

[kwschumm]

Very neat.
 
I've always been afraid to automate my house for two reasons. The first is that being in my 60's I'm concerned with selling the house if/when we downsize and second becasue I don't think that I'll want to maintain a large system. I was raised on the KISS principal. I do have UPB lighting but only six carefully chosen switches.
 
Mike.

 
I agree with this. I'm not using anything that can't easily be retrofit or done without. UPB instead of hard wired lighting. Security panel wiring is standard so it can be either turned off or replaced with any other panel. Standalone NVR cams and sprinkler system. Wireless Sonos sound system. The only thing I'd miss are the special programmed stuff that nobody who didn't know the house would miss.

 

[drvnbysound]

Very neat.
 
I've always been afraid to automate my house for two reasons. The first is that being in my 60's I'm concerned with selling the house if/when we downsize and second becasue I don't think that I'll want to maintain a large system. I was raised on the KISS principal. I do have UPB lighting but only six carefully chosen switches.
 
Mike.

I feel like I had a pretty reasonable HA setup in our last house (sold ~18mo ago). The only thing we really left were the in-wall and in-ceiling speakers. I pulled my Elk, keypads, and everything associated with that except the door/window sensors. I also pulled our 4 exterior cameras, zwave devices, etc. 

Other than the aforementioned speakers, everything else was put back to CLOSE to how the house was when we bought it. I guess I should say that I left the in-wall structured wiring panels, and all the associated cabling I added too. 

The buyer actually paid us extra, outside of the mortgage for me to leave the existing surround sound receiver and speaker selector I had. 

 

[drvnbysound]

http://nymag.com/selectall/smarthome/extreme-makeover-smart-home-edition.html



Alas I was in the last few days of my 18 month travel project so only had a little time to brag but got some stuff out there ...

I'll have to read this a little later, but congrats on being featured. That's pretty cool! 

 

[drvnbysound]

We have neighbors of 25 years with your surname who just recently moved but I have never met their children being that they were grown when we moved into the neighborhood. Any chance you have family in Connecticut?
 
Mike.

 
 

Oh that's not my real last name. No chance am I going to tell a national audience that, my location, and what I have. That's a small portion of what I can do. I used the same name as when I won the zwave rock star thing years back (http://zwaveworld.com/2011/all-z-wave-articles/how-to/get-started-the-easy-way/z-wave-rock-star-contest-winner/)

That Jason guy is braver than I am. Real name, location, company, family status, and where he'll be on the weekends. I'm betting his wife or parents are pissed.

I just took a few minutes to read the article. It states that in the article: "...Bhargava (who asked to be identified only by his first and middle names)... "

There are definitely some impressive integration pieces mentioned in the article; uber wait times, battery % levels, fuel levels... 

 

[IVB]

Alas first negative ramification of this article.
 
No nothing like that. My M1DBHR blew as a result of a power surge during the solar panel install. I could only find the M1DBH, which uses RJ45/CAT5 instead of just direct connecting the 4 wires. I just made 9 RJ45 plugs with flying leads, need to now connect them to the 9 inbound wires. I could just use electric tape and call it a day, but now i'm realizing that if anyone were to ever look at the work of my system, they'd issue a retraction on the article. Off to the hardware store in 10 minutes to get tiny heatshrink and thin diameter solder. Thank god i'm between clients right now, soldering 36 connections this close together is going to take forever. But my legions vast deserve to see nothing less

 

[tmbrown97]

Very neat.
 
I've always been afraid to automate my house for two reasons. The first is that being in my 60's I'm concerned with selling the house if/when we downsize and second becasue I don't think that I'll want to maintain a large system. I was raised on the KISS principal. I do have UPB lighting but only six carefully chosen switches.
 
Mike.

 
I used to worry about that too - two houses ago, I took everything automated when I left.  My last house though, we made the decision to move very quickly AND moved out of state (didn't list the house until 2 weeks AFTER we left).  I had already decided that if the buyer didn't want the UPB it wasn't going to affect the house price - the time (or electrician cost) of replacing ~60 light switches vs. just buying new switches for my next house...  
 
Since I didn't have time to remove the Elk and patch the walls and all that, we left everything 100% as-is - I just disabled my Elk rules.  Left the cameras, NVR, even left the network pre-configured (this community provides the internet for you as part of the HOA).  I reset the passwords on everything and handed it off.
 
We decided to just highlight what the house could do - we left an iPad running eKeypad and taught the realtors holding the open houses how to do the basics and gave them a highlight list of what it could do.  
 
In the end, I got two offers on the house, and both families were interested in the automation aspects.  This house/community appealed well to young families and I know the buyers liked all the automation since it was all designed around kid safety and convenience.  The one thing that was different is, normally people (at least in that area) are told to just lock the doors on their way out and leave the house when the sale closes... never actually interact with the buyers. Given the automation, we ended up having the buyers over for a walkthrough to show them what was in place and how everything worked.
 
I probably could've saved myself a ton of money if I'd taken the equipment with me - but I figured after 8 years, it'd be time for something new...  although, I'm not seeing anything I like better at this point.  

 

[mikefamig]

You guys are making me feel veeery old buying and selling houses and removing switches and patching drywall. I've pulled some wire and hung myshare of drywall but I spend more time than I want to maintaining the pool and landscape and wife and all and I just don't know where you guys get the ambition and energy. I like to think that I'm the last guy to back away from a challenge but it's tough getting old.
 
I'd like to see an age survey in this cocoontech site.
 
Mike.

 

[IVB]

You guys are making me feel veeery old buying and selling houses and removing switches and patching drywall. I've pulled some wire and hung myshare of drywall but I spend more time than I want to maintaining the pool and landscape and wife and all and I just don't know where you guys get the ambition and energy. I like to think that I'm the last guy to back away from a challenge but it's tough getting old.
 
I'd like to see an age survey in this cocoontech site.
 
Mike.

I was born in the 60s, which is as much as I'd say on a public forum. But I still play soccer against 25 year olds, box with 35 year olds and have the bruised ego to show for it.

 

[drvnbysound]

You guys are making me feel veeery old buying and selling houses and removing switches and patching drywall. I've pulled some wire and hung myshare of drywall but I spend more time than I want to maintaining the pool and landscape and wife and all and I just don't know where you guys get the ambition and energy. I like to think that I'm the last guy to back away from a challenge but it's tough getting old.
 
I'd like to see an age survey in this cocoontech site.
 
Mike.

I too have been curious of the age demographic here for a while. For a long time I assumed that I was on the younger end of the spectrum, but not so sure anymore. I'm mid-30s now. Looking back at my profile history, I see that I joined the site back in 2009 [late 20s then], a year after we bought our first home... which is where all the pictures I've previously shared have been from. 

This past winter I was able to hop into the attic of the new [to us] home and got a lot of LV wiring pulled to a central closet. In the process I also re-wired all existing coax and phone (replaced with Cat6), pulling all of those to the closet as well. I am still lacking some wiring for my Elk as well as my CCTV setup, but it's far to hot to be getting up in the attic now for a non-paying effort. I'm planning to get back up there in the fall/winter of this year to finish up.