Home Automation businesses?
brk: Been there, done that.The industry and market-base is still way too fractured.One of the biggest limiting factors is that in order to be very useful and functional, there has to be a moderate degree of programmability in the device that is acting as the server/controller for the home.  This limits the effective market to geeks and tinkerers, who are also the most common build-vs-buy crowd.Homeowners, in the general sense, do not want to pay monthly fees for service and are leery of installing a system that controls their home that they feel they have little or no personal control or understanding of.Where the HA industry has seen some decent business is in specialized lighting and HVAC control systems.