Technology

but I’m not techy

That’s the entire problem. Automation products depending on the cloud do have fewer requirements, are simpler to get started with, even if they’re overall poorer choices. They’re a fundamental fact that something needs to control your devices: cloud devices means the company takes care of that for you.

Taking the cloud out of the loop means you need to manage some sort of automation hub. There are many choices but I don’t know which may be approachable for non-techies. The new Matter/Thread standard tries to solve this while making everything work together, but adoption has been slow so you may not be able to use it for much yet. Your choice of automation hub drives your choices.

Maybe some of what I do is applicable, but I AM techie, I love to tinker, and I own my home, so maybe not. I try for local control where possible plus make choices that are additive: things still need to work normally.

• Prefer smart switches, not bulbs, so they still work normally. They also act as repeaters for local Zigbee or Z-Wave networks
• Z-Wave and Zigbee are local low-powered mesh networks commonly used in home automation. “Thread” is a newcomer but not widely used yet. Think of them as a network between Bluetooth and WiFi, but designed as a mesh to better cover your home. These are local networks only, there is no cloud connection (directly). They use a lot less power than WiFi, which makes battery devices more practical, and different frequencies for less interference. You should expect to pick one.
• Home Assistant (HA) on a Raspberry Pi. This was always the techie choice as opensource software that supports everything but in the last two years they have made it a lot more approachable, and Nabu Casa sells it installed in custom hardware. Among other things, it lets me use all of Z-Wave, Zigbee, and Thread devices, as well as Ethernet devices and gives a lot of automation power. When you’re starting out, you should stick to one for simplicity
• I do use Alexa, which requires internet access. I choose to subscribe to Nabu Casa to manage that in HA, since it also funds further HA development but this is not required and there are no ads or data collection
• My latest automation was for my teen staying up late all summer: at midnight, dim the family room lights and announce over Alexa that he should go to bed. He’s back at college now but I’m sure I’ll want it next time he’s home