[bee_rider]

It is actually the same number of trips on my end at least. Without phone control for my lights, I turn off the lights on the way to the couch, get comfortable in the dark (can't even see all my blankets), then look for the remote in the dark, and then start up a movie. With the phone control for my lights I go to the couch, do all that stuff in the light, and then dim the lights afterwards. The only difference is that I have to paw around for the remote longer in the first scenario.

While there is some resource waste because I'm not going to rip the old lightswitches and copper wires out of my apartment walls and, I dunno, recycle them or something, this doesn't seem to be a fundamental issue. The automated stuff is mostly wireless, so I guess we could save a bit of copper if we were to install it in lieu of switches. So really the issue is that the previous designer didn't correctly separate out UI from underlying functionality, that's their waste not mine!