That makes sense, but sounds like it'd be a constant spam battle. Maybe I'm overthinking it, or just thinking about how I'd go about breaking/attacking something to try to figure out how to fix it.
Most smart switches don't do dimming, so you can't do the gradients (5%, 50%, change color, whatever). Most of the time, it's on or off, binary state.
Light bulbs give you more versatility.
I'm new to the whole concept of federation, so please let me know if I'm missing something fundamental, but with your proposal (subscribing to all c/pickles) works for when each instance has the same general rules for posts, but what about when one c/pickles on some server is actually about... dildos? (like r/trees was about pot, and r/marijuanaenthusiasts was about trees)?
Wouldn't your feed be polluted with pics and reviews of dildos when you want wholesome and healthy pickle recipes?
smart bulbs in the bedroom. About 50-60$ per lightbulb, control them as a group, and no fighting with the spouse "you were the last one in bed, you need to go turn the lights off" vs "you're closer, you turn the light off"
Link them to your wiretap speaker of choice (google home or Alexa) and you can issue commands to it.
"Ok Google, turn off lights"
"Ok Google, set lights to 5%" (good for just a little light, getting ready to bed, not disturbing your spouse, or sexytimes)
You can get really crazy with something like HomeAssistant, but that's pretty technical in nature, but then you can control everything with your phone app, run automations to turn on the house lights when the garage door opens between 5:15 and 6:15pm (assumes you're just getting home). automatically lock the doors at 11pm, let you know when the trash hasn't been taken out, adjust lighting when the TV is turned on, etc etc etc.
If only... They called themselves domestic terrorists at CPAC a year or two ago... When someone tells you who they are, listen to them.