a. No it will not make your home more valuable. The only advantage would be that it might help your home sell more quickly than one priced the same with the same level of other finishes that doesn't have the tech stuff. b. If you want to sell the house, you sell it for the going rate. See a. If you don't want to sell it, then you remove it before selling as sushi said. I had some expensive chandeliers and light fixtures in the condo I just sold. I removed them and replaced them with cheaper fixtures before putting my home on the market. I knew I couldn't charge more for the expensive fixtures but could use them in my new build. Lastly, in 5-7 years everything that you installed in your home will be dated so it definitely will not be worth more.

In our latest build, I concentrated on: 1. Wiring, for now and the future. Upgraded as far as we could go-CAT6 (alas, residential fiber not yet affordable, 2 years ago) and made sure that we planned for things we wanted as well as what, perhaps, a future buyer might want. We are with Google Fiber, currently, but all fiber networks can work with this wiring. We'd lived through the "intercom" stage (early 80s) and wanted nothing like that. Control panels swerve all systems, are out of the way and except for an additional alarm system panel (panic room? :) ), none is in the master, nor is any of it visible. The whole house could be run by apps, for those who have the appetite for apps. I don't... Most importantly, we did the planning before the walls went in. 2. Concentrated on not putting in anything that might become obsolete, fast. At one point, our low voltage guy recommended a built-in iPad, to run the house. Lol- NO! 3. Put 240V in the car area. Electric cars are becoming more and more something people want, and are common in my city. HAH! We decided to test the technology, soon after move-in. Got an EV. Our public utility paid for half the costs of the station/install. We're having a blast with the car, and Federal credits made it stupidly affordable. Now- the Utility told us that if we sell too soon OR go solar, they "might" ask for their money back. Understandable because... 4. Made sure that solar is a reasonable option, without tearing our house apart. Go back to #1- it all matters, works. We're have a great rating for solar (because of design) and can easily do it. Didn't do it with the initial build, because that technology is rapidly changing. 5. Nest Thermostats- we have them. Took a minute for me to understand the programming, but it works great. 6. Made sure that our HVAC system had the best, cleanest and easiest to operate technology available. Without an app, it works with our windows, even, to prevent the "fogging" that happens when it's 100 degrees outside and 72 inside. Also works to control humidity in our really humid climate. 6. Not what you'd think of as "technology", but we have a very natural possibility of a third story rooftop deck. We don't want it (I HATE holes in roofs- problems abound, even in the best of cases), but somebody else might. So while the walls were open, we took the time to have a tiny bit of engineering, a bit of steel reinforcement installed, and presto! That space is ready to go, for anybody who wants to do it. All of this was done at really affordable prices, since it was planned for, installed in the beginning. All of it wrapped up in a really nice, long-term Builder's Warranty. Not nearly as affordable if you don't do it and then discover you want "more". That, then, becomes a type of a remodel remodel- hell on earth, for me! The only thing we installed that could become obsolete are ceiling speakers. We love music, and it plays through our home a lot. Can hook to the TV, so a football game (or movie) sounds like a home theater, without all the mess. Eh- the speakers could become out-of-date, but they're there, so a quick switch out and off you go.

For where you have online systems mixing together like Davis mentions above, that is a real concern. In most scenarios if that relationship ever breaks up, you usually can revive a portion of the previous behavior my using an intermediary to bridge the two ecosystems together. In particular IFTTT (If This Then That). If you're using offline or locally controlled devices like room occupancy sensors, temperature/humidity sensors, wall switches, lights, and door locks, you're pretty safe in that regard. In most of those instances, you can get devices not originally meant for SmartHome to operate with it since Samsung has made them extensible. For example, Lowes Home Improvement has their own automation platform that uses Zwave and Zigbee based devices that don't natively work with SmartHome, but people in the community have made apps or device definitions to make them work. Would totally agree on the breadth of options comment as well. SmartHome is probably the best (outside what I would consider high end automation like Control4 or Crestron), whereas newer entrants to the market like Abode still have a way to go. Others like Vera have been around for a decade, but aren't engineered very well for easy customization like you can using the developer tools that SmartHome has.

JC hit it. There are SO many companies producing "gizmos" that there are going to be issues. Above and beyond the "boy that's cool factor", the reality is for any "gizmo a" to work with "gizmo c or gizmo d", getting any given number of companies to do this and work with a gizmo from another company is going to be anything but mission impossible. Tech is mostly based on "if this, then that rules". In other words you pull into the garage and your door automatically closes so we need a rule "if the garage door closes, then turn on the lamp in the living room IF..." Then one day the company that makes "gizmo a" comes out with the "upgraded gizmo a"... well guess what, NOTHING ELSE WILL WORK WITH IT. Think iPhones here. They are making what, 2 plus new models per year? Seems like the iPhone 5 was here and now it's gone. Try to find support and the latest and greatest apps for that phone, good luck with that. Planned obsolescence. In years to come, it'll take a major player such as Apple, Amazon or Google to put together the COMPLETE package. I frequent a very popular online boating forum and here is one such post from a day ago regarding "smart houses". --------------------- I got really into SmartThings last year, replaced all of our switches, added sensors to all of the doors, integrated with my harmony hub, integrated with Google home and Alexa, ifttt, etc. SmartThings is a great open platform for those who like to tweak and customize. However, I'm not sure I'd do it again. Out of the box, the basic automation that SmartThings (and wink too, I bought one of those and sent it back because it did next to nothing for automation and there was no ability to add community-developed extensions) offers are exactly that...very basic. Like too basic to be anything other than a novelty IMO. To really automate with complex rules (when someone comes home then do x but only if nobody else is already home and the garage hasn't opened in the past 30 minutes, for example), community-developed rule machines are necessary. Since they are community based, support is limited and they can (and do) stop working randomly, requiring constant updates and a decent amount of time on the community forums. I like the idea of HA but the REAL usefulness and "set it and forget it" type rules are not there yet. For the time being, I'll stick to turning on my lights and watering my lawn the old fashioned way. IT WORKS.