Me being me, one of the first things I wanted to do in my new home was set up the smart home technology. That’s now almost complete (I’m currently engaged in mortal battle with presence detectors) and I’ll have an update soon.
But there was also the matter of the smart home tech I was leaving behind – and that was less straightforward thanks to a surprising omission in the Apple Home ecosystem …
Smart homes get mixed reviews from real estate agents. Some take the view that it adds value to a property and should therefore be included in the sale. Others say that fear of complexity may put off some buyers and that you should sell the home without it.
I decided the, uh, smartest thing to do was to play it by ear: I’d test the reaction of potential buyers when they viewed the property by demonstrating several different elements of it.
As it turned out, my buyer was extremely keen on the smart home tech, and we therefore agreed that I’d leave it all in place. That wasn’t such a sacrifice from the perspective of my new home, as some of the tech had moved on and I’d have been tempted to upgrade in any case. For example, I used the new Hue Gradient Light Strips in place of the one-color-at-a-time versions I had in my old place, and I now want a smart lock with Apple Key support.
