There’s certainly a chicken-egg problem. You need a bunch of networked objects to start to do interesting things, and you need real, compelling reasons to think through polished connected objects. The fact that connected lighting is at all popular, to me, is an indication that people are interested in playing with it but not much more. There are so many UX problems with connected lighting, all for the benefit of having your lights change color from your smartphone? Not relevant to most people. When the friction in terms of ease and cost is much less, than frivolous connected objects will make more sense, but until then, you have to start with an actual user need and design a complete product from there. Connectivity or an app should be only a byproduct of that process.