Hi-Tech Smart Apartment Development

[Ed Fowler]

Hey Everyone!

We're rehabbing a 54-unit building in Detroit and are planning to outfit the entire building with smart devices.  Some of these devices includes smart fuses, dimmers, locks, sensors, curtains, and thermostats.  Detroit is a very tech-forward/ 'first adopter' type of city and we believe that young career professionals will appreciate the comfort and convenience that is synonymous with smart home automation.  There are a few technical hurdles with managing nearly 1,000 devices in an apartment building, however we're pretty optimistic that it can be done.

I'm curious to know if anyone on this platform ever deployed smart devices in a large apartment building. Or, perhaps have experience with Tuya-powered smart devices and/or Leviton smart circuit breakers. I'm sure there are a few gotchas that we are overlooking. Thanks for sharing your experiences!

Best,

Ed

[Cody Lewis]

I’ve deployed such devices personally but not at scale. One thing to remember is these devices (most of them) will require strong internet connections. If you’re providing them you’ll also need to maintain the connection. Also think about when someone moves out. How and who is resetting the devices so they previous tenet doesn’t still have control over them. This may have been solved with commercial grade equipment. 

Personally I would prefer to deploy my own smart devices as I would prefer to choose the brand and software used to control the devices. But that’s just me.