In a house full of smart everything—lights, locks, voice assistants, and even robots to mow and vacuum—I finally got tired of one “dumb piece of metal” running 24/7: my old 75-gallon tank water heater. It was taking up a huge chunk of my utility closet, constantly burning propane whether we were home or on vacation, and I was honestly getting nervous about its age and the risk of leaks. So I upgraded to the Rheem Ikonic super high-efficiency tankless propane water heater, and it’s been a massive transformation for both the room and the way our house runs. I picked this unit for a few reasons: it’s tankless (so we get an endless supply of hot water), it’s rated at 11.2 gallons per minute, and it’s actually smart. I tested it by running all five showers in my house at the same time at normal shower temps—and it kept up, endlessly. On the smart home side, it uses Rheem’s EcoNet app and it integrates into Home Assistant, exposing things like set temperature, alerts, whether it’s running, heater power, and water usage. Now I can build automations and monitoring around hot water spikes or temperature changes (like if the kids mess with the unit), which is exactly the kind of data-driven upgrade I want in a modern smart home.