Turns out, dumb devices were never the problem.

Home Assistant’s 2026.4 update introduces native infrared (IR) support, enabling control of TVs, air conditioners, and other IR-based devices without hardware modifications. Using affordable IR ...

There are lots of smart home systems that will let you blast your older dumb appliances with infrared to control them.

An IR repeater system takes Infrared (IR) light coming from your remote controller and converts it to an electrical signal that can be easily distributed over electrical wiring to one or more IR ...