Home automation has been going on for a long time. When we built our house over 20 years ago we used X10 and still have some of those units, but they are not generally automated now. They had a tendency to burn out if a bulb blew and they don't work with modern LED lights. I am looking at some modern wireless ones to replace them.
I used to read Byte when I could get hold of it. There were some good computer magazines back then, but I rarely read any now. Have you seen this zoomable archive of all issues of Byte?
i remember the home automation stuff, X10 controllers and software, being available for popular computers back in the 8-bit days. It never really caught on in a mainstream way but until the Internet really started taking off, most people didn't own computers. These days, home automation is mostly done via things like Google Home and Alexa. i still prefer the idea of a closed system vs. having everything on the Internet though.
I hadn't seen that zoomable archive before. That's pretty neat.
I've played with Home Assistant and may use it again as it lets you use different systems with overall control. The big companies can let us down as Google did to me by removing support for my heating system.