mikefamig said:
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.