Question for the home techie folks

[M_Six]

I've been hesitant to write this, but it's been weighing on me for a while now. My wife and I have started some estate planning and a recent health scare (that turned out to be minor) have combined to get me thinking about how she would cope with technology in my absence. I'm into home automation and I have an extensive camera network, plus a NAS and NVR. My network is a mix of Ethernet and MoCA. It all runs fairly well and rarely needs intervention, but power failures take a bit of work to recover from and every now and then something acts up.

Don't get me wrong, my wife isn't helpless. She's a college professor and quite intelligent. But she's not a techie. She prefers simplicity rather than gee-whiz automation.

So I'm curious if other folks have thought about how their SO would deal with systems that are more than just a modem, router, and wifi if they suddenly found themselves alone. Do you have a plan in place to simplify things? Or someone who could step in and fix problems? Have you ever given it a second thought? I'm about to build a network rack and relocate as much of my equipment as possible to one room, and planning for that has really highlighted just how intricate my setup is. Part of me wonders if this wouldn't be a good time to go all Henry David Thoreau and simplify. OTOH, I could be around for another 25-30 years, so why worry about it.

Thoughts?

[XutvJet]

If she's not a techie person and you're gone, I would imagine that all you tech will be gone too. My guess is she's supportive of it now because she sees that you get enjoyment from it. If you're gone, she'll likely see it as a time-consuming and unneeded nuisance. Routers and wifi's are pretty basic and most spouses can deal with that using friends, family, Youtube, etc.

If you haven't already, the more important thing is having your spouse under the financials like how and who does the taxes, investment strategy, where all the money is, who to contact at your employer, taxation on capital gains, etc. I've written this all out for my wife and kids in case I'm gone or both my wife and I are gone. The plan sits in our will/trust document.

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by XutvJet

If she's not a techie person and you're gone, I would imagine that all you tech will be gone too. My guess is she's supportive of it now because she sees that you get enjoyment from it. If you're gone, she'll likely see it as a time-consuming and unneeded nuisance. Routers and wifi's are pretty basic and most spouses can deal with that using friends, family, Youtube, etc.

If you haven't already, the more important thing is having your spouse under the financials like how and who does the taxes, investment strategy, where all the money is, who to contact at your employer, taxation on capital gains, etc. I've written this all out for my wife and kids in case I'm gone or both my wife and I are gone. The plan sits in our will/trust document.

Yeah, the money end is all set. And the soon-to-be-finished estate planning will hopefully take care of things should something happen to both of us. I'm just thinking about her having to untangle the basic networking stuff from my fun-and-games techie stuff.

[UncleWede]

IF she's a college prof, I'm sure there is some kitten who will come over when you are gone

My wife can barely change the TV from cable box to firestick, despite all my attempts to show her. She can't figure out why her iPhone doesn't ring when she puts it in silent mode either.

When I die, she will have her iPad, and won't need to connect to the earbuds via BT any longer, since the noise won't bother me. At that point, it's up to her kids to show her.

And no, I do NOT know her password