Thank you for both of your thoughts, looking at the ChromeCast that I have sitting around (fairly new), it doesn’t have many problems compared to my ‘SmartTV’ especially with Ads, Loading and things but yeah it seems to always be selling you the latest TV Show or Movie, or just show me something I’ve never been interested in watching like Sports.

This could be a helpful thing, as I know I don’t always like sharing my Phone Number with people.

Running Home Assistant or any other Bridge is a possibly in the future with something like a raspberry pi but I’m not very smart in that area so it’s something I’ll have to learn about and build over time.

The reason I’m just purely going for HomeKit at the moment is due to the Apple Eco system being very well known to be easy to set up and use. Some things will obviously have to be done via Home Assistant, such as turning my PC through commands, sensors, or time-based actions.

Matter / Threads is something I have looked slightly into and if I went for a newer Apple HomeHub I know it does have support for those devices. Obviously I’m not only going for turning on and off lights, I hope to have a fully functional home that can be used both smart and dumbly (turning switches off without effecting smart functions).

Thank you for your feedback, I’ll have to research Home Assistant more, as well as the overall price per room to do things such as Blinds, Smart TV (w/ AppleTV), Lights (including Switches, and more but this will all not be purchased at once.