You didn't mention the smartwatch at all in your essay. As someone living with one (a pebble) daily for the past year, many of the smarthome needs have been extending into working with the smartwatch, and they don't have the painpoints you describe.

Just as an example - for changing volume on my pebble, i do this:

1) long-hold the up-button (i have this binded to an app called 'music boss' )

2) hit up or down.

3) volume changes.

There's similar apps for controlling smart lightbulbs, etc, and pretty much expect this to be standard case on android wear / apple watch / microsoft band / etc. in the coming months.

Is there a "multi-user" factor missing that makes a case for products like Senic Flow? Yes, but that wasn't addressed in the essay.