diy smart multiway trailing socket.

I agree with you they do sound like a good thing to have.

What, that come on and off with the ambient temp / humidity / sunrise / sunset / Mon, Wed, Fri and when someone enters the cellar etc? ;-)

Part of what makes most of this so *easy* IS that it's wireless, not saying that it's good in any other way etc.

Whilst the whole Home Assistant thing can be pretty plug&play and even the automations *can* be pretty pull down menu driven:

Trigger = 'Sun' Value = Sunset + 00:30:00

Condition: None

Action = Turn on front porch light at 50% Turn on rear porch light at 50%

etc

... at other times, especially when mixing and matching stuff from different manufacturers (that may or may not be formally / fully supported) you do need to do some coding. That said, much of it is more scripting and editing .yaml files and because there are a lot of others out there doing similar stuff, I can often stand on the shoulders of giants. ;-)

Cheers, T i m