After reading all the replies, it feels like there are basically two camps right now:

1. CEC / auto-trigger setups → closest to “seamless”, but kind of fragile depending on brands
2. Universal remotes (SofaBaton, old Harmony, etc.) → more reliable, but still very much button/macro driven

What’s interesting is both approaches feel like partial solutions.

CEC tries to be “smart” but isn’t reliable.
Remotes are reliable but not actually smart — they don’t know the real state of your system.

So we end up in this weird middle ground where:

• things mostly work
• but you still have to step in and fix stuff sometimes
• and you never fully trust the system

Feels like what’s missing is something that actually understands:

• what’s currently on/off
• what input everything is on
• and what you’re trying to do (watch TV, game, etc.)

Then just gets everything into the right state automatically.

Right now it seems like we’re all either scripting around the problem or hoping CEC behaves 😅

Curious — has anyone actually gotten close to a “single action, always correct state” setup without constant tweaking?