The "couple a stepper motor to a shaft" API is so much better than any "smart" appliance API.

Speaking more seriously, I wish classes of appliances would expose some simple analog and digital interface pins in a standardized configuration to let users choose whatever automation or monitoring hardware they want. HVAC equipment does this with standardized thermostat terminals. I'd love to see that on other types of appliances, too.

The manufacturer's crappy "app" that will inevitably be abandoned and require keeping some old phone / tablet in good "health" lest you lose the "smart" functionality (or worse, any use of) the appliance.

Then current way of putting the "smarts" inside the appliance is just planned obsolescence and a recipe for all of us being eyeball deep in ewaste.

It always kind of blows my mind that I keep seeing "smart TVs" which have a bunch of integration options for high-end AV installations (rich people's houses, etc.) but no API that you can integrate with to just handle toggling channels/inputs/power states/volumes.

(I did get my last Sony Bravia integrated with Homekit so that I could control inputs, volume, etc. via the Home app, but that's not really what I'm looking for).

Give me an HTTPS API, require me to authenticate devices on the TV itself before it accepts their commands, and just let me do whatever. Default it to off and make it a hidden setting, but yeah just let me do the thing without having to pay tens of thousands of dollars for some professional installation to integrate with hardware I don't have and can't afford.

Exactly.

I don't want a "smart" washer / dryer / fridge / toaster. I want a standard interface I can build my own system around, or use someone else's that they've already built.