I have (tried to) make a smart-home for mostly three main purposes:

- maximize p.v. self-consumption, the sole reasonable economical model for p.v.

- exterior surveillance when I'm outside, both to know if some thief pass by or to open the gate to a postman to get a package delivered anyway, following him/her on cam and being able to talk via the entryphone

- emergency automations, like close the water in case of a leak, shot down anything in case of no p.v. an low battery etc

All such activities are damn limited by the iron available on sale. Let's start with the most interesting economically: since the Sun does not shine all days for the entire duration of the day the most loads I can shift the most I get from my p.v. I've decided to buy a modern "future ready" heat-pump water heater for a most reputable manufacturer here in EU (a Daikin/Rotex M2O EKHHP, now they are called Altherma) and well... It's solo possible integration are two dry contacts, two bits to command 4 possible states:

- do not consume

- do heat at maximum power (heat-pump ~800W and classic resistance ~2kW)

- do whatever you want following water temperature

- do start with the heat-pump and after 15' also power uo the resistence

Now, this last state is IMVHO a total absurd. Sometimes I have some spare 800W only so I'd like to heat if it's possible with the heat pump ONLY, not "for 15' than go full power", sometimes I have 2kW spare but not 2.8kW. So why not something less absurd? They offer a ModBUS card used essentially just to get internal water temperature and few other measures, why not allow a full command of the unit beside the two dry contacts useful only to be coupled with modern grid smart-meter that allow to piloting big loads following current energy prices? Just few registers to allow "do not run", "run automatically", "run the heat-pump if possible", "run the resistance if possible"? This alone represent a very little OEM costs, a potentially interesting economy for owners/integrators. Of course if we have also washing machines, dishwashers, ovens etc that instead of a big resistence offer few smaller one, and allow to power them up/cut them off one by one centrally commanded by a homeserver integration it will be also much better. But no, we have very chatty washing machines https://www.tomshardware.com/networking/your-washing-machine... but nothing else. In the future we will have washingmachines without control panel to be controlled only via some cloud-backed (cr)app but not something useful for a personal integration. Not talking about IPcam able to run locally without buying an Axis one, using one of the various open protocols we have...

Long story short: smart devices are just OEM-controlled, user-macro-spy devices and that's why they are a very poor investments WHILE proper smart devices potentially could be very nice investments if they are designed for the owner, not only for the OEM.

I hereby propose a new crime: surveillance crime against humanity, where any connected device that's connected and controlled NOT by the formal owner infra should be illegal to sell and a crime to have them operation for the OEM. From roomba to all new cars they should be allowed to connect to the OEM IF THE USER WANT but by default they MUST offer local connectivity and open protocols.