Lighting was the first and still most meaningful smarthome thing I've done, though I did it much more manually. Hue bulbs don't require any sort of WAN link, the hub(s) will work fine purely via LAN (though without firmware updates sadly without opening a hole), and of course one can then remote in with a VPN (via a bounce/mesh if you don't have a fixed IP) like anything else LAN-based. And 3rd party apps can seamlessly deal with multiple hubs. This is a fun read because I've been considering moving to Home Assistant, primarily because I'm worried about what happens when the hubs inevitably fail. 10+ years after its launch Philips has still never bothered to implement and backup/restore functionality(!!!), so that's a real driver. But in terms of pure functionality it's worked very well to code up a bunch of manual timers and time-of-day-based options on switches.
And in terms of QoL impact it's been a pretty big deal for us. For context I live near the Canadian border, so not Alaska-level in terms of differences in night/day over the course of a year but far enough north that it does vary quite a lot. Being able to have a whole "sunrise" scene for the house, to have "daylight" with varying use of color and brightness (I've added 2 or 3 way bulb systems to a bunch of lamps to deal with Hue color bulbs not having as much brightness range as would be ideal), and warmth at night has made it so much easier to maintain proper sleep cycles. Rather then an audible alarm, I have a 15-minute animation of "sunrise" I put together that gently wakes me up and by the time it's getting to the whiter/bluer portion I'm set, I head down without any grogginess even when it's still black out. This all works for motion sensors too, and I've been able to massively cut down blue light emission and emission period of outdoor light at night without compromising safety and that I think is quite important for wildlife. There has been research on rampant blue light (and artificial light in general) affecting insect populations, which are under pressure anyway.
I think Smart Home kit is powerful and can be (and certainly has been) misused. I will not touch anything with any sort of internet requirement, I segment things onto their own VLANs, and I'd be more cautious about it for things without the same visible indicators or with more potential side effects. But it has a real place too, and lighting is a perfect use case. I hope efforts like Matter pan out, the real issue is how vertically tied a lot of stacks are.
And in terms of QoL impact it's been a pretty big deal for us. For context I live near the Canadian border, so not Alaska-level in terms of differences in night/day over the course of a year but far enough north that it does vary quite a lot. Being able to have a whole "sunrise" scene for the house, to have "daylight" with varying use of color and brightness (I've added 2 or 3 way bulb systems to a bunch of lamps to deal with Hue color bulbs not having as much brightness range as would be ideal), and warmth at night has made it so much easier to maintain proper sleep cycles. Rather then an audible alarm, I have a 15-minute animation of "sunrise" I put together that gently wakes me up and by the time it's getting to the whiter/bluer portion I'm set, I head down without any grogginess even when it's still black out. This all works for motion sensors too, and I've been able to massively cut down blue light emission and emission period of outdoor light at night without compromising safety and that I think is quite important for wildlife. There has been research on rampant blue light (and artificial light in general) affecting insect populations, which are under pressure anyway.
I think Smart Home kit is powerful and can be (and certainly has been) misused. I will not touch anything with any sort of internet requirement, I segment things onto their own VLANs, and I'd be more cautious about it for things without the same visible indicators or with more potential side effects. But it has a real place too, and lighting is a perfect use case. I hope efforts like Matter pan out, the real issue is how vertically tied a lot of stacks are.