Successes in home automation for rental units?

Question

I currently manage 7 rental units and have been thinking about installing some home automation devices to better help manage the properties and receive alerts.

Idea 1: we pay for heat in one of the buildings. I have been thinking of installing nest thermostats in each unit. First, so that tenants can have a programmable thermostat. But, second, so I can make sure if folks are on vacation they are turning it down.  Is this to 'big-brotherish'? Have others installed similar thermostats to help control heating costs?

Idea 2: One of our buildings has smoke alarms that go off for no reason.  All of the smokes are now no older than a year, but the problem still persists.  I was thinking of putting in nest smokes which would allow me to get an alert if one was to go off.  Have others done something similar? I am not sure the alarms would pass State Fire code, but I am going to check.

I know that for large apartment buildings there are a lot more options for automation and alerts, but have others had success in automating 1-4 unit multi families?  What products have you used, and where have you had success?

Thanks,

Mark

Roy N. · Answer

@Mark Hall

We've rolled our own building monitoring system, leverage the Internet of Things (IoT) which allows us to:

• monitor & control HVAC (thermostats, humidistats, etc);
• monitor moisture sensors (under basement subfloors, in catch pans under water heater storage tanks, laundry units, dishwashers);
• monitor motion sensors (attic hatches and other off-limits sections of the properties)
• remotely mange and control door locks (no going to the property at 03:00 for tenants who have locked themselves out; service technicians can be given one-time access codes)

We are always playing with new ideas and adding new capabilities.

Chris Allen · Answer

I know it's been four years since this question was posted, but want to share what I did since I saved around $400 a year.

About my unit

• 4 unit building.  Three two-bedroom, one one-bedroom.  
• Heat is included in rent.
• Building is located upstate NY.  But I adhere to NYC heating laws since they are more favorable to renters.)
• I have coin-operated laundry in the basement that is accessable via an outside door.

What I want to accomplish

• Allow tenants SOME control over heat
• Between the hours of 6:00am and 10:00pm, if the outside temperature falls below 55 degrees, the inside temperature is required to be at least 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Between the hours of 10:00pm and 6:00am, the inside temperature is required to be at least 62 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Provide access to the laundry room and unlock doors for contractors without handing over keys.
• Not track my tenants movements or being intrusive.

Equipment purchases (not trying to sell anything, but give list of things that worked together)

• SmartThings:  This links the devices that I will explain later to the internet
• NETGEAR 4G LTE Modem: This connects to the internet with out needing to pay for a cable modem (your situation may differ)
• freedompop for $10 a month I get the basic data plan that provides me 200mb a month (more than enough)
• Schlage Connect Smart Deadbolt.  This can engage the deadbolt automatically. 
• Zwave Door Sensor
• CT100 Themostat

When I got the freedom pop sim card, I put that into the LTE modem.  In Freedom pop there is a setting to reconnect automatically if the modem is restarted.  I then directly added the SmartThing hub to the LTE modem.  Then using my smart phone I installed the SmartThing app and followed directions to add all the other other smart apps.

I installed the dead lock and door sensor on the door for the laundry room.  I gave each tenant a separate code which I can disable when they move out.

I also automatically lock the door if the door is closed for 10 minutes (hence the door sensor)

I installed the thermostat in each unit and set up rules to keep the temperature with in a range.

Google 'Webcore' and you will find lots of information.  This is an open source software that will allow your to create complicated rules based on many inputs, here is a sample

Using webcore I sat up a rule for each apartment to customize the program to fit their needs.

For example Apartment 1, everyone is gone week days from 8 to 5.

• At 6:00 am I set the inside temperature to 72 if the outside temp is <= 55
• At 8:00 am I set the inside temperature to 68 if the outside temp is <= 55 and it's a weekday
• At 4:30 pm I set the inside temperature to 72 if the outside temp is <= 55 and it's a weekday
• At 9:30 pm I set the inside temperature to 63 if the outside temp is <= 55
• Every 5 minutes I check to see if the thermostat is adjusted greater than 73.  If it is, I get a text message and it's set back my preprogram range. 
• Every 5 minutes I check to see if the thermostat is adjusted less than 60.  If it is, I get a text message and it's set back my preprogram range. **This alerted me that the furnace was not working.Hope this helps people find a direction to start to manage their properties from afar.

Roy N. · Answer

@Matt R.

I hear you ... that's one of the reasons we rolled our own.

@Patrick Liska- what you are doing is some of the things we can do with our system.  The downside of pulling pieces aimed at individual bits of home automation is now you have a bunch of unrelated systems that do not play nice or scale together.

I've eschewed the Honeywell thermostats as they are propretary and Honeywell has a long tradition of not playing well with others.

When I started down this road five years ago, there was not very little from which to choose.  Now there are new IoT devices and sensors coming to life every week.   The big companies like Honeywell, Siemens and (less so) Samsung will be a bit of a drag on interoperability as they try to drag their proprietary solutions into play.   It will be open source projects like Raspberry Pi and Arduino which will push the real interoperability.

Patrick Liska · Answer

i have 2 student rentals with 3 thermostats ( ones a 2 family) and i have Honeywell wifi thermostats at each, they have a website you sign on to that's free where you can monitor and control each thermostat, including temperature and time programming. the SFH has a schlage keypad lock ( fe595), which is z-wave so i have a veralite control box for the z wave that connects to the router. both the veralite and schlage have free websites you can log onto to have access to these products. the schlage site allows you to change pass codes, unlock the door, and keeps log of when the door is opened. i do offer free internet to the students and helps with rentals. i went with a commercial, higher band internet with a static IP, so i wouldn't have a problem with connections to these units. i did get a warning the other day about the batteries being low on the door lock by email from the unit, and had my PM change them. i do like the system because i do not have to re-key the locks all the time, come June after the students leave and before the new ones come in, i will log on and change the pass to the door and email my PM with the new code.

Roy N. · Answer

Matt:

That long question deserves an longer answer, but I'm pressed at the moment, so lets go with the Coles Notes (Cliffs Notes for those of you south of the 49th) version.  We have three hardware devices in-play at the moment:

• the original ARM-based Linux box (looks like your typical home ADSL router) which we built form a kit.  
• After we built our own prototype, I bumped into the folks who became SmartThings (now owned by Samsung) and we are using the SmartThings hub in a few places (their head-end system, did not meet our needs, so we've rolled our own)
• a RaspberryPi based system which is a work in progress, but very promising.

A starter kit from SmartThings would get you going quickly, but it is aimed at the home automation market.  We found their cloud-end head-end rules are not expansive enough for properties with multiple units or able to accommodate the delegation of functionality we wanted.   We have an internet connection into each property (we also provide complementary Internet to our student tenants), but we could use cellular or, in many parts of the city, the public hotspot network.

Roy N. · Answer

Jordan:

We have been using Schlage locks because - until recently - they did not power the deadbolt, but simply unlocked and the human had to turn the deadbolt.   Powering the deadbolt consumes more energy (shorter battery life) and is problematic in places where you have older (i.e. Second Empire, Victorian) buildings and *real* winter.  It is two easy for the deadbolt to get slightly out of alignment and the power actuator become unable to {un}lock the door.

We have been piloting the electronic locks on two student properties for almost two years now.  In the first year we issues physical keys in addition to the passcode.  When one of the units turned-over this year, we did not issue physical keys.   The plan is to move completely away from physical keys - tenants have an App on their phone an a key-code plus proximity tag.

Brian Rosher · Answer

One feature of the Nest E thermostat is it has emergency temperatures you can program.  Even if the tenant turns off the thermostat it kicks on the heat before freezing temperatures.  It also has an occupancy sensor that can turn down the heat when no one is home, but this seems to be unreliable at the moment in my own home.

Matt R. · Answer

Thanks!

I'll take a look at the Smart Things stuff.  I took a quick look at their site and it at least looks interesting.

One of the challenges I have is that before I got into real estate, I wrote software for a living.  I figure that if *I* lash up the software with a Raspberry Pi, Beagleboard, or equal, it *might* be insecure.  If I *buy* the software from somebody, I *know* it's insecure.  :)  So that's why I was thinking of rolling my own, and also limiting myself to just monitoring at first.

Matt R. · Answer

@Roy N.

If you don't mind saying, what kind of hardware (CPU, sensors) are you using for this?

I am interested in doing something like this for a house I am under contract for.  The water meter already has a transducer on it, and I think I can talk to that to get meter readings.  (If not, I'm pretty sure I can use an rtl-sdr stick to talk to the remote reading device.)  I've thought of adding a temperature sensor (freeze sensing) and maybe a line current sensor on the furnace.  The moisture sensing is something I hadn't thought of.

For connectivity, I was looking at using a cell-phone module (Adafruit Fona or similar).  I'm pretty sure the tenant will have some kind of Internet service, but they will pay for it, and I'd like to avoid having to depend on their Internet/WiFi.  My idea is that the CPU could upload routine logging data to me maybe a couple of times a day, and send me a text message for alerts (water running for a long time, temperature falling near freezing).  This would all go over the cell-phone network.

I don't really want to *control* anything yet, like the HVAC or the door locks.  I feel like that's maybe a little too intrusive for the type of property and tenant I hope to have.  (Ask me again after I have to drive over there at 3 AM to turn on the furnace. :) )

Thanks!

Donny Widjaja · Answer

@Roy N.

The KwikSet smart key is exactly the same as the Weisser smart key, and I agree with you it will not work for the Master / sub-master case for multi-unit.

Successes in home automation for rental units?

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