If I am leaving my home for longer than two weeks, I bring some of my smart gear with me—most of it plugs into the wall. But as smart tech digs a deeper foothold into the very structure of our homes, from smart doors and windows to garage door openers and light fixtures, those products are less likely to move with you. Instead, your smart blinds and hard-wired smart speakers remain behind, and a new owner is left to figure out how to how to operate products whose controls may not be wall switches, but apps and automation dependencies set up by a system they don’t run. This premise was explored in a Verge piece that posits the notion of smart-home "ghosts"—those smart devices that seem to haunt new owners by running on their own and without logic. While this is an interesting product of modern times that I’m sure will continue to grow, there are some simple ways we can become ghostbusters.
Document your automations and devices
I am already an advocate of keeping a home journal—a place you document your paint colors, wallpaper names, appliance names and models, and maintenance records. This makes it so much easier the next time you need to get a replacement part, repair a chip in the wall or prove to the insurance agent what you owned. Included in that journal should be a record of your smart home: what devices are hardwired into your home, and their manufacturer and app name. Briefly note which devices have automations attached to them and if they’re in the native app or your voice assistant. Should you sell the house, the journal stays with the house, giving the new owners an actual guidebook to the property.
If that sounds over the top, consider every person who has bought a home and inherited a wonky sprinkler system with no documentation or guidance, or an HVAC system that has some eccentricities. This kind of journal is helpful to you, yes, but also feels like a responsibility we owe the house itself.
Ask about smart devices in the sales process
Asking about that sprinkler system or HVAC is part of the sales process; now we need to add smart devices to the mix. Will the owner be leaving any devices, and if so, which devices, and how are they controlled?
Moreover, don’t assume the old owners are no-contact. Once you’ve bought the house, you can ask your agent to pass along a thank-you note and, hopefully, keep open a line of communication with the previous owners. They put a lot of love into the home (unless it was a flip, and it’s doubtful flippers left smart devices) and might be invested in ensuring the new stewards know how to use everything.
Replace the smart device
If you’re haunted by old smart devices, and you simply can’t get to the bottom of why a specific light comes on and off at noon, or what triggers all the locks to deadbolt, you can just replace them—it removes the problem entirely. If it’s a specific kind of device, like a garage door opener, you can hire a specialist to suss out the problem, but it may not be worth it. This is your house now, and you can change it as you like. Spending a lot of time frustrated over some part of your new home that you can’t figure out isn’t how you want to spend your first year in a new home.
In most cases, a new router will fix the problem
The reality of smart devices is that they usually need wifi, unless they’re on some special local network. When people move, they move the modem and router, and not being able to connect to the wifi network that’s programmed will knock most smart devices offline. In fact, that may well be the problem you’re having with left-behind devices you can’t get to work: They need a hard reset, to be registered to the app on your devices and given access to your new wifi network.