[hassancf]

Agree with the radiator dial analogy.

Here is what led me to some home automation (scared of water leak damage)

- I had a home security system using some external monitoring the old way

- wanted to be able to see what’s going on when I’m away (alarm would trigger the security company to call me but not a water leak)

- bought Aqara water leak sensors, camera etc, plugged everything and currently use Apple’s HomeKit (Apple TV) with iCloud (2TB cloud with “secure video”) to get notified when I’m on my cell if something goes wrong

- this basic “infrastructure” gave me the basics for home automation where I can configure a bunch of conditions (if this, then that) and buy additional sensors/camera and just add them if I want to…

Not Raspberry Pi. Not open source.

More like a fire a forget kind of thing

[tomxor]

That seems like a genuine application of the technology. It's adding something uniquely useful that wasn't there before; rather than replacing something simple and reliable with something more complex, equivalently functional and marginally increasing convenience (if at all).

A functional low tech, un-networked equivalent for remote sensor notification to identify a specific event cannot exist. So fair enough.