You simply make sure you leave all the TVs throughout the house on different channels so you can watch what you want while not violating the rule upon some technicality.

Sigh

I wonder if you can start a speaker phone call that lasts 25 hours and one minute :)

Not the parent, but this article might be instructive

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbat_elevator

Er, kind of? People like to say the public transit system can be considered a horizonal elevator if you want to take the concept far enough. But even so, the idea is still there.

Not OP, but grew up observant. What's meant there is that you choose to not change the state of the electronics. An light that's already on stays on the entire time - you don't turn it off. You end up with an extra set of intentionality - you have to decide during the week if you want lights during the evening in the winter on Friday nights (and if you do, how late should they be on as you're probably setting up a timer on a smart plug).

Exactly

If they’re talking about the Jewish observance of the sabbath, it’s my understanding that they’re not allowed to turn on an electronic (or mechanical?) device nor turn one off during the sabbath itself.

Obvious exceptions are made for such things as life-saving situations, the practice of medicine, etc.

Yup

Not the commenter, but it may well be because even turning off an operational device counts as work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/39_Melakhot

Correct

If it's an autonomous system, we usually don't have to mess around with it, ie furnace follows nests schedule, hot water heater cycles itself, timers that run all week for living room lights will keep doing their thing.

For lights, we leave bathroom lights on, but turn off lights and leave it that way. We go so far as to either have switch covers or tape to prevent accidental state changes.