Unfortunately only us technical folks have it good. I solved this problem by using three methods - homeassistant is number one. The second, is only integrating

Unfortunately only us technical folks have it good. I solved this problem by using three methods - homeassistant is number one. The second, is only integrating / purchasing devices that I can either manually flash open source software on (think tasmota for instance,) or the solution's API has been re'd. The third thing is Shelly. Shelly products are the shit. I'm not a shill either; I've purchased every single Shelly I own (~40.) Shelly makes automating lights and switches amazing because you don't replace the switch, they're literally wife proof. I've also flashed all my Shelly devices to communicate to homeassistant directly, however they have native non cloud integration capabilities. Again, this doesn't solve the main problem of fragmentation - home assistant addresses this by being a black box, but it's not for normies, I don't know how it ever could be. It has gotten super slick though. The other issue is stuff like Shelly requires a technical brain - the way they're installed you'd be playing with mains current, and no Suzie home maker should be doing that...