Having had a smarthome for only 33% of the smarthome time period (13 out of 40 years), I find the power consumption of the appliances driving the smart home to be more of a "next generation" issue.
Having lights shut off automagically at 10pm every night makes my home consume 600 wh (0.6 kwh) per day. The Apple TV uses 6 watts (per the power supply on Apple's page), so having it on consumes 0.06 kwh, a 100x improvement.
Having motion sensors that detect movement, and when there is none, to gradually shut lights off (over 10 minutes) helps as well, and the security light outside from 1 hour (random +/- 30 minutes) after and before sunset/rise helps with security.
Also, having a panic button that "randomly" makes lights turn on/off throughout the house when we hit the panic button is nice to draw attention to the house for when the police arrive.
"Hey Joe, I wonder what house is being broken into..."
"Maybe the one, at 1am, that has all the lights randomly turning off and on, while the rest of them are all dark, and the porch light using Morse code to say that the perps are in the living room."
Getting back to the main point, perhaps the Pareto of the power usage of the controlled devices should be the driving force, and with light bulbs radically using less power (8w for a former 60w bulb is what I call "radical"), the time may be coming for a look at the controllers for the power savings.
But then again, I'll take a 6 watt controller (Apple TV) over a 70W computer (Retina iMac)
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/the-new-retina-imac-is-surprisingly-power-efficient.1802292/
