I've been running a smart home for 3 years. Here's what survived the "cool demo" phase and became genuinely useful infrastructure. The Graveyard of Failed Automations Before the working stack, let me honor what didn't survive: Motion-activated lights everywhere — turns out, lights turning on when the cat walks by at 3 AM is not "smart" Voice-controlled thermostat — nobody wants to shout at their house when guests are over Automated blinds on sunrise — great in theory, terrible when you're sleeping in on Saturday Smart lock auto-unlock on proximity — security nightmare when your phone GPS drifts The pattern: automations that are triggered by presence/time fail. Automations that are triggered by intent succeed. What Actually Works 1.…