Disclaimer: I have had zero issues with Wattboxes that require someone to make a site visit...or require the client to power cycle things for us.

Having said that...Back in the day most of our service calls were for locked up "smart devices" or IR emitters getting knocked off (solved by embedding emitters). We solved our lockup issues with surge protectors that had big ON/OFF switches on the front of them so the client could quickly turn it all off and back on. This worked perfectly for years.

Later we decided to get fancy with "smart" power control so that we could reboot things for the client remotely. And then we took it a step further with smarter devices that would tell us when there is a problem via logs and notifications so that we could intervene before the client was ever aware there was a problem.

The solution to our original problem of "smart devices locking up" is now a smart device that is prone to locking up.

One one hand i think "Okay so now we can fix 99% of our clients problems remotely"

On the other hand i think "1% of the time we look like morons because our solution to lock ups is a lock up".

Bottom line is that we end up looking like fools and the client loses confidence in US...because at the end of the day WE are the power management solution not the product we sold. Our clients wont be calling up Manufacturer A to complain. No one at Manufacturer A has to explain themselves to our client.

The good news (not sarcasm) is that its not just the power management devices. Its freaking everything. Control processors, media server/streams, tablets, apps, the network...EVERYTHING. My damn Cars Touchscreen rebooted itself the other day and wouldn't work right until i shut the car off and turned it back on. MY CAR!

So just be honest with your customers from the beginning. "Look...all these devices lock up. Nothing can solve it 100% of the time. Product X from Manufacturer A will allow us to solve a lot of these problems for you".