I haven't really gotten into "smart home" stuff, but I can definitely relate to the idea that the modern tech landscape can often create a ton of busy work. Just look at my TV, for example. The way TV used to work was that you turned it on and the TV was on. Now, even though I've got a relatively friendly setup with an Nvidia Shield, a "user" still has to navigate through some menus to get what they want to watch on…
I remember wanting to play GTA at my friend’s house, and it took a whole hour and lots of fiddling with the menus followed by a multi-GB update to play. We jokingly said that we were playing IT Simulator.
I have less and less patience for needy tech.