So you’ve implemented Home Assistant in your home and have integrated all kinds of devices. You’ve got smart plugs, switches, dimmers and bulbs. You’ve connected thermostats, door locks, motion sensors and cameras. You’ve got scenes, scripts and automations that tie it all together into one elegant, cohesive whole. It sends notifications to and allows control from your phones, tablets, desktops and AI speakers. It’s perfectly tuned to you and your family, yet you’ve got plenty more ideas on how to expand it further. Except…recently your home has become too small, or too large, or too far from work or school or retirement, and you’ve now decided it’s time to move.
So what do you do with your home’s smarts? Anything permanently mounted must be left behind (unless you remove it before showing). Your home being ensmartened may be an attractive selling feature, though some of the devices and automations are probably unique to your family. You have configuration accounts with manufacturers that shouldn’t be left on the devices. And the next owners may not be as technically savy as you, do you provide post-sales tech support? Do you even leave Home Assistant in the house at all!?!
If you will be moving soon, what is your planning about this?
If you have already moved, what did you do for it?
If you were to start over with your smart home, is there anything you’d do at the very beginning keeping the end in mind?
There are other threads on this, in Texas realtors advise
Turn off all the smarts you intend to sell with the home and run as dumb during showings and market as smart home ready.
Anything shown must stay during the sale unless negotiated
You will end up be the customer support for the buyer forever unless you make arrangements otherwise
You open yourself to liability if it doesn’t work
Ill add I really don’t ever want to turn over credentials to anything. So I’ll buy the buyer a brand spanking new HA Yellow, (or whatever is current) Zigbee and ZWave sticks, and a bottle of champagne with a note that says:
Welcome! Here’s your new Homeassistant ‘server’ this and everything in the attached envelope is what you need to get started making all the smart stuff in your new home get smart. Have fun!
This is half true. I’m not a lawyer and this isn’t legal advice, but you can remove anything you want from the home as long as it’s listed in the contract that you and the buyers agree to. The contract just has to say which items will be removed and whether they’ll be replaced with e.g. standard light switches. You don’t have to remove them before showing the house, though it would be polite (and would probably save you some hassle) to include that information in the listing and/or your fact sheet. Ultimately, though, your realtor is going to be the best source of guidance on the topic.
Funny was JUST thinking about this myself. I am currently looking to move myself. My first thought was to take my system with me, leave the devices and yes mark it as smart home ready.
Then start over. I’ve been planning this a while now and have been purchasing switches and sensors that I have packed away. This way I’ll have the stuff and I’ll have to do the work but I can replace an entire house of switches in a day [I’m a contractor]
My issue is since I have all these entities and such it would be easier just to start over again by taking my theme [lovelace yaml file] on a fresh install of HAOS and that would be easier. Yes I’ll have to set everything up again but hey I know WAY more now then I did then so it’s just a matter of sitting down and getting it done.
I prefer to add one thing at a time as I use primarily zigbee devices…switches, door locks, etc.
This is a topic I have contemplated for a couple of years, knowing that I would move in the near future. What I landed on was to leave behind only the stuff that has usefulness beyond “nerdy”, for example light switches, but taking the rest, such as any custom ESP devices, curtain controllers, etc. I honestly can’t even count how many times my wife has mentioned “what are you going to do with all this smart stuff when we sell this place” and even as I add new things I’m careful to add only things that aren’t a permanent addition to the house.
I figured I would want almost all new Inovelli when I bought a new home anyway, along with whatever nerdy stuff I took with me. I would also leave a freshly installed rPi mounted where my current rPi is and simply leave a packet behind on “how to enable the home automation”. That way if they don’t want it they can ignore it, if they do then they can spend hours/weeks/months setting things up. I would also wipe out the Z-Stick so they would be required to pair everything again - this way they can start having a smart home the day they take possession if they want, without buying anything else.
But, as a techno-junkie, it’s not just my HA stuff, there’s other tech that I’ve had to make plans for, such as my “server room” with racks and patch panels and the like (those stay behind). I won’t leave anything behind that is persnickety, like some of the off-brand Z-Wave stuff that has to be tweaked from time to time (I’m looking at you GE/Jasco or Enerwave garbage), those will just be given away to other enthusiasts.
My primary concern is that everything works like a normal house when I leave and home automation is an optional thing that’s ready to go if they want it. It’ll probably take me a couple of months to disassemble this comprehensive setup I’ve built over the last 20 years, but oh well.
If you expect to sell your house one day, it should affect the choices of the components you use. For example, a Lutron lighting system is great standalone and works with pretty much any automation system. So I would definitely go that route instead of Zwave switches where you’ll have to have the new homeowner program everyhing switch by switch again, esp if you are using it for 3-way switch functionality, etc…
Likewise you want HVAC controls that are smart on their own, like Nest or Ecobee, and provide functionality without a hub or HA core to make it all work. Likewise in terms of alarm systems, remote controls, etc…
My own strategy for home automation is not using Home Assistant for basic functionality or room controls, but for integration of functions. Things like turning the HVAC off when the alarm system says a window is open, or turning on the outside lights when a camera sees motion, or turning on the bathroom fan when the humidity hits a threshold (why is it that kids cant ever turn the fan on when they shower?)…
Basic functionality works without HA being up, so if I am working on it the WAF doesn’t plummet. This also makes it a lot easier to sell, since subsystems are functional without the automation piece. Sensors remain in place but they don’t have to be used for basic functions, and if they die it’s not core.
This really is about your core strategy for automation and what you are optimizing for. If you are thinking in terms of adding value to the home, esp for a sale, then you may not want to go the cheapest route for every component, even if HA can easily provide core functionality.
I live in Europe and if we ever move I will remove everything that belongs to the smart home and replace them with dumb parts.
My wife is trying to convince me to move soon but I am resisting as long as possible
Good luck with the move
OP here. I don’t have any actual plans to move currently, but expect in the next five-or-so years it’s likely to happen. However, I’m a logistical thinker, and it’s been on my mind.
There’s some great ideas here. I currently run HA on a Linux host, and like @NathanCu I’d already considered come moving time to get something like an HA Yellow du jour. Some of the integrations I currently run are too specific to Home Assistant and would be lost otherwise. But several of you make a good point that maybe having them lost would be okay.
As mentioned in the SlackerLabs video, last year I established a generic email address and used it to re-register all the affixed devices (e.g. light switches, outlets). Unfortunately, too many of the integrationally-challenged1 switches weren’t reusable when they were removed and all got tossed; good on you @nappyjim. All the free devices (such as smart plugs) I’ve left registered to me so I can take them and go. The smart devices are all on a separate router/subnet, so that it can be easily left behind. And now I’ve started a list onto which I’ll throw relevant tasks as they occur to me, such as what goes with me, and what to do with what stays behind.
I’m unsure what to do with much of my other tech, such as the amplifiers that are triggered off of other amplifiers to run secondary wired speakers. Likewise the switches, routers and servers located where all the ethernet cables collect. Perhaps much of that stays, as @CO_4X4 mentions. I do hope the realtor will offer that level of guidance.
You will end up being the customer support for the buyer forever unless you make arrangements, otherwise you open yourself to liability if it doesn’t work
Yeah, I don’t want that. I’ll be hoping to get really lucky to have a highly technical person be the buyer.
– 1 I assume it’s unkind these days to call them “dumb switches”?
They buyer should have no way of contacting you. Sure they might have questions but no typical exchange would involve the buyer and seller ever meeting or exchanging details. They may gleam your name from the contract but that would be it. Anything you do to prepare them for setting up their own HA instance is a nicety and nothing is obligatory.
That being said, I have no intent to sell this house, but potentially rent it if i move for work. I want the renter to continue to run my HA instance for a number of reasons. I would make the house as dumb as possible by disabling most automations though for simplicity.
I know this is an older topic, but I think it’s a very important one. Although I just bought our house and started to automate it, I always try to plan for the future and eventually will end up selling it. Selling a home with an already working smart home can add a lot of dollars to the selling price, and when we do eventually sell, I’d like to leave as much as possible to the buyer in working condition.
What I’ve done is, I’ve created a new gmail account with the name of the house ie [email protected] and in gmail, have messages forwarded to my personal email. All apps such as Lutron, Google Home, Home Assistant, etc… I use this email address as the owner. When I eventually sell the place, all I have to do is change the gmail forward address to the new owner, they can change to a new password, and I can be completely divorced from the system, and they can have a great working system. I can leave them detailed instructions on how to change their router to reserve certain MAC addresses to everything will work. Heck, they can hire me to come over as a consultant to streamline it for them, Any flaws in this thinking?
Letting them change router and reserve MAC, well, to most people that is jibberish, they are clueless about networking.
And come over as consultant would work, provided you move close by, have time for it and are willing to do so…i wouldn’t want to do that
Not only that but if you sold me that house, I’d assume there was a backdoor installed and redo it. Plus Abby devices you have connected via wifi, would need to be reconnected as I wouldn’t want you having the WiFi password.
Also turning home assistant over to someone is nice but they’ll have no idea how to fix things as they have issues. They eventually will of course.
I have some strong feelings about this one both being in IT security and having helped a friend have to unwind something. That post has my normal instructions. Also it doesn’t add to the price. It scares off ad many buyers as it attracts.
In short one cannot hand over a fully working installation. Instead wipe and load but there are ways to make it palletable. And it starts with not selling the home as Smart but instead ‘Smart-Ready’
Exactly. That is why my approach is “hey, you have a bunch of smart switches, do with them what you will”. I would never trust someone else’s home automation server, it would be THE first thing I ripped out considering how deeply they can spy on you with it.
I figured I would set up a system for the agent showing the home to be able to press a button somewhere to demonstrate smart home capabilities with a very obvious statement that lets the potential buyer know that it’s smart-home equipped but not enabled until they choose to do so.
