I'm not sure about mobility affected people, but it seems like this could be useful even after very short ranges for blind people, since they already have acces

I'm not sure about mobility affected people, but it seems like this could be useful even after very short ranges for blind people, since they already have accessibility built into their phones. Any device could be a talking device. Using Bluetooth would add a lot of utility though. I don't really know if I want a robot butler, but I would like it if the stove could turn itself off if a pot is ever left on, or maybe have phone controlled temperature profiles if I ever cooked anything fancy enough for that. Some mobility impaired people might have trouble with proximity devices in some cases, someone in a wheelchair might like to go straight through without going out of their way to hit the button. What would be really nice is if we could separate the smart element from the rest of the device, with a standardized module. Anyone could make something "smart" just by putting the switch pin in a connector, security would be the module maker's problem, you would never have to worry about providing updates. You would never have to buy new stuff just because the smart server went down, at most you would buy new modules. Permanently installed things could be smart, like a light switch. If you move, you take your modules, and the next person brings theirs(If they want smart features). To add a module to your account could just be as simple as plugging it into your phone and hitting a single pairing button. Nobody would have to make non-smart appliances anymore for the low cost or IoT hating crowd, just make every manmade device ever be smart. The physical form factor could just be a standardized USB stick like a flash drive. USB has power save modes, and 1.1 can be bitbanged on cheap microcontrollers. You could define a protocol where the stick could ask the appliance for information about itself, and send simple commands(USB MIDI already exists!). Plus, if you're not using the smart features, now your stuff has a USB outlet for anything else you might want to power. Or you could use OTG and USB-C and make the stick the host, so the appliance could also be controlled right from a Raspberry Pi.