Solar storms can be extremely damaging to the power grid (and by extension, to electronics that is plugged directly into that grid). But, as you note, the distances required to produce a strong current are just too great for any home electronics to be affected.

There's a lot of mythology surrounding this, largely because valid information on nuclear EMP is conflated with EM effects accompanying CME (coronal mass ejections). There is some overlap between the two, but the differences are far bigger.

http://www.futurescience.com/emp/E1-E2-E3.html