I haven't done much with automation lately. I have my Nest heating control and Ikea smart light with sensor in the hall. I have used a X10 switch for the Xmas lights before that was linked to Alexa. I honestly think Amazon and Google are not that bothered about listening to us. If they were actually proved to be doing it they would be in serious trouble. I have one of each of their gadgets, but have not used them lately.
I did fit a new outside light with PIR, but it is not connected to anything else. That can just make things more complicated, especially if I am not there to fix it. It all has to be family friendly.
I still like the idea of more automation, but it is something I need to revisit. I expect there are lots more gadgets available now. When we built our house the options were very limited.
That Dream Machine router is fairly expensive. Is it worth it for home use? I have heard people talk about putting IoT devices on a separate network.
!PIZZA
For most people the Dream Machine is probably not the smartest play. Especially now that the mesh systems have started to come down in price a bit. I can add modules to the Dream Machine if I want, but I haven't yet. Our signal is a little dodgy in the kitchen upstairs, but not unmanageable. Being a tech guy I feel a lot of the routers out there are limited on how much you can configure them. I wanted to be able to create separate SSID's for my data/streaming/IoT so that is why I looked at the Dream Machine. Being able to add vLans on top of that was an added bonus.