As an IT tech of three decades now, I have looked into “smart” home tech for the last decade and have found almost everything to be worse than the classic tech it’s supposed to be replacing.

And this is before the horrifically bad security that is inherent in these connected devices… like, for many of them security was only an afterthought, and for some of them it wasn’t even on the list aside from some performative fluff. Many IoT devices come with blisteringly bad zero-day exploits, and manufacturers love to wash their hands of responsibility by “obsoleting” the devices (no more updates/patches) long before production actually ends.

I’m currently doing a multi-year gut of my house to bring it up from 1970s expected electrical loads to modern ones (each floor has 80+% of all wall sockets and wired-in devices on a single 15a circuit… which is not going to fly in 2026), and while I am adding many features and conveniences, most of them will be built using 50s to 90s tech. In particular: they will all be near-trivially repairable by someone with only a pedestrian knowledge of electronics, electricity, and networking. And I do mean repairable, and not just replaceable.