I’d argue home assistant with some smart LEDs and a few sensors would be great.

Having a bulb that let’s you know the outside temperature/weather when you’re getting dressed in the morning is neat. Having a dimming pattern for sleeping time. Tons of other really simple stuff available too.

And the vast majority of my automations don’t use it because it isn’t required.

I will stand by what I said, the tool is great even if you don’t touch AI at all with it.

The comment was wrong. It’s an automation tool. It can use ai, but its not the primary focus.