(Having said that, I failed to watch a DVD at the weekend; the Xbox wouldn't play it as it was region locked, then I realised that I'd not hooked up the DVD player in the six months since buying the television, and it flaked out trying to play on my laptop.)

None of this makes me think that a "home automation" system will be any more convenient or reliable. I've only just made my peace with the "smart TV". I wanted a dumb TV, but will admit that the smartness has mostly delivered. It even seems to have HDMI-CEC that works with the satellite box from a different manufacturer. It still occasionally nags about updates or informs me that something it shipped with no longer works or requires a new EULA.

I have dealt with the complexity of "AV recievers", whatever they are exactly, by not knowing why I might need one and not having one.

The one feature I may end up building is the ability to listen to the TV in the kitchen, which I may do by running thirty feet of wire.

Recently my sister's response was, "Actually, you use the X-box controller." What a future we live in.