There are few to no compelling use cases for consumers creating a true network of internet connected things, because they don't have distributed physical things. If all your stuff is nearby, and isn't in large quantities, then the internet, or computer networking in general, is not the path of least resistance to control/monitor/utilize it to some greater application. Controlling X with your phone is novel at first, but its nearly always an incremental improvement on controlling X with physical interfaces. Its not a killer app by any definition. It's businesses that have lots of stuff in lots of places to track and control. In these scenarios, a microcontroller with a radio is not just an incrementally better solution competing with an existing alternative, but the only feasible solution.