> I believe a key to home automation is the automation part. If I have to control it manually, it's by definition not automated. Yup, this. I built an automat

> I believe a key to home automation is the automation part. If I have to control it manually, it's by definition not automated. Yup, this. I built an automated heating system. It does all the right things at the right times. I never touch it; it has some graphs if I want to see what it's doing. The shoddy consumer systems all have manual control and an app, because you just spent all that money, you want the warm fuzzy feeling of having an app to fiddle with. Marketing is why everything has to be networked.