We came back from a holiday and had the low battery issue with our Nest thermostat mentioned here.  Luckily I was home and popped the thermostat off the wall and charged it via the usb port.  If the weather would have been worse the result could have been much different.   In the past most of our home automation stuff worked pretty well. Lights turn on and off on schedule. You can ask the Amazon Echo to turn light on and off amongst other things and it all seems to work most of the time. I think most of the issues typically have to do with wi-fi connectivity.

One theme that runs through all of the newer electronic devices from washing machines to wemos is how susceptible they are too dirty power.  I spent hundreds of dollars on a dryer repair just to have the same circuit board go flaky a second time. My options are to get a whole house power protector which is expensive, turn the power off to the devices when not in use or go back to devices with mechanical inputs.  I thought the last option was interesting meaning we stay with our turn this knob to make this machine do something in that the thing that drives all of these devices might supplant moving to home automation.

Phil