I've been into home automation stuff for a while, and it certainly feels like this with a lot of products/services. Part of it is definitely just the feeling of

I've been into home automation stuff for a while, and it certainly feels like this with a lot of products/services. Part of it is definitely just the feeling of living in the future. That said some stuff is really nice, but typically require more than your average "smart home". In my mind I've made a distinction between "smart home" and "convoluted home" devices. A "convoluted home" device would be something like an app controlled light. The simple one-step process of flicking a switch is now a multi-step process of unlocking your phone, finding the app, and turning it off. Sure it has more features like changing the temperature or colour of the light, but it's not "smart". The "smart" part of a system comes with interactions and logic between systems. An example that I have in my house is that my phone sends the time of the next alarm and an event whenever it is connected or disconnected from a charger. So half an hour before my alarm goes of the lights in the bedroom slowly dim up, waking me up gently. When the alarm rings it will turn on the rest of the lights in my house to full brightness and white light. Then in the evening, at a set time, the lights will start getting warmer, and then dim down helping me get sleepy before bedtime. And then when I connect my phone to my charger at night the lights in the whole house turns of. This is "smart". It means I barely if ever touch light switches any longer, don't have to remember to turn of lights at night, and that my natural day/night cycle works better. With presence detection based on whether the phone is connected to the WiFi you could also turn lights off completely while I'm gone. With controllable ovens you could extend the system to turn down the heat to save power. The list goes on and on, but the thing which makes it all possible is not so much the "smart"-ness of the individual device, but the combined "smart" of all the interconnected systems.