Morbid question

#1

Just a curious question…

What happens to my webcore account if I were to suddenly die?
Most of my home automation is controlled through ST/webcore. My wife does not have the skills to take over maintenance of my account. What would/could she do?

#2

Interesting question!
I think its something that needs considering during the design process, along with

  • What happens if we move home

  • If the hub/internet fail, what happens

Where I’ve used fibaro dimmers, I’ve also installed the hard wired switches, so there is still manual control. I don’t have anything fully reliant on ST/webcore, we’d just loose some convenience features.

To maintain the system, you will always need knowledge of how it works. e.g I’ve just had to replace a failed sensor, which required changes to pistons to use the new sensor. I’m not sure if there are any companies who provide maintance contracts.

#3

With most of my clients, the majority of the conversation comes from only one household member. Some of them have introduced me to their partner, or we have agreed upon a “password”, so if something happens, their significant other can contact me for future tweaks and programming requests.

Thankfully, I have not had to step into this role yet, but I think it is a good strategy, since I am already in tune with their home’s logic.

#4

Never thought about it:)))
But in my case - since wife is not 100% happy about this whole ST home thing - the best way would be giving her the number of my electrician so that he can come and turn everything back to not Smart home:)))

She can’t maintain the home at all, nor she wants to do it anyway:)

#5

Very smart approach. I wish I had seen your post before I started the smart home journey…
I switch to your path way later:))))

#6

Yeah, my wife just rolls her eyes when I even mention this stuff. She would prefer just to roll things back into the dark ages!

#7

I feel your pain:))))

When i first started, it took me about 6 hours work to get my speaker say “Welcome home, it’s nice to see you again” (Open/close sensor at the door)
I waited till she got home with huge excitement and sonos speakers made the announcement…
“Welcome home, it’s nice to see you…”
she just said “oh I don’t like this:))))”

Maybe we should form a club “Bummed partners/husbands club”
I see tons of participants all ready LOL

#8

I admit it is common for one partner to be a “techie” and one to not care in the least…

I find it helps if there are a bunch of pistons created entirely for their benefit.
(bubble bath, favorite colors/music, programming to help with their pet-peeves etc)

This usually helps to “win them over”… :sunglasses:

#9

I know that my wife is somewhat aware of the things that I have automated for her. She does get mildly irritated when something gets broken or everything shuts down all of the sudden. To that point, I believe that just deleting everything back to minimal home automation (if I were to die) would be something she would not want.

#10

This is a good sign, LOL.
It means (for the most part) she’s happy with it… :+1:

#11

Damn I never thought about it this way…
very smart…

#12

I’ve been very fortunate this time around. (There were earlier attempts at smartening the house. That’s all I’ll say about that.) This time I started with just a few things: A thermostat, some door sensors, and a garage door controller. When I turned my attention to lights, I talked to my wife about it and she was the one who suggested making the kitchen lights act as a unit and adding an auxiliary switch to the bathroom. As we continued the conversation, I mentioned that I had seen a water valve and she immediately thought about using it on the outside hose bib and programming an auto-shut off. We’ve added a number of things since then, but I’ll have to say it’s nice that she’s on board with it and can appreciate at least some of the advantages.
That said, she’s not as forgiving of tech when hiccups occur. I’ve worked hard to iron out the kinks to make sure she doesn’t have a change of heart on all this.
.
More to the topic, I suspect that if I were to pass away, she’d continue to use the automation, but relegate any maintenance and upgrading to someone like my nephew. I’ve already got the documentation concerning passwords, registration keys, and links created.