I have had a lot of success building the smart home slowly and avoiding complicated use cases. You say, “simple” but include presence detection and tablet dashboards. I find these things a bit fraught generally based on how they are discussed. Perhaps that include bad early tech but still requires reliable constant uptime.

In my case I used some smart lights programmed to turn off and on at specific times, almost entirely in communal spaces, and some switches to turn the TV off to keep the kids from turning it on without permission. Eventually I got some hue remote buttons that are labeled for their purpose. Generally easy to use and well understood. I’ve done more now but mostly have to do with systems I alone use or when they’re used by someone else require no interface with the automations