Yeah, there is a market of people who don't want to change their circuit breaker and still want the benefits of controlling their home energy. You can dismiss them but they aren't going away, and they seem to have cash in hand for more energy efficient homes.

So companies can go in, in our simplified universe, one of two ways. The first tact is yelling "fuck you you hipster piece of shit, we built what you're talking about 20 years ago and if you really wanted what you're talking about you'd bring yourself to my level." The second tact is building the thing that people seem to be asking for.

I know that all of these things exist and work. I know that this is nothing new to you. But if I'm making these devices then fuck you, you're not my target market anyway. Instead, I'm going to focus on those hipster pieces of shit. I'm going to build a "learning thermostat" that your program to your actions. That has a motion detector that can tell if you're home and the house should be heated or cooled off schedule. That looks futuristic and cool, because even if they don't want to admit it, that matters.

And when I have that product built, I'm going to build lights that can use those motion detectors to turn off if no one's in the house. That can not use the water heater, when someone wants to save money without going tankless. That can Know when an outlet should be drawing power and when it shouldn't be.

Yeah, you can do these things because you give enough of a shit to go out and learn it. Everyone else can't say the same thing. That's who they're building for.