I‘ve now my first smart home device. It is only a power outlet, but the story behind it is a bit special.
Because Apple trapped me in there ecosystem I wanted to have a HomeKit compatible outlet. The problem with that: Either to expensive or to big. So my ne mission: Connect a non HomeKit device to HomeKit, but without a too expensive proprietary gateway/bridge.
After a bit of googling I found a software called "Homebridge", build to run on a Raspberry Pi. Fortunately I had one old RasbPi 1 B. So I installed a new Raspbian and installed Homebridge. I forgot how slow it was.
Then I bought a cheap (but good) ZigBee outlet and a ZigBee USB Dongle. With a plugin for Homebridge it was very easy to connect the ZigBee Dongle.
Then I tried to connect the outlet, but the log said "Unrecognized device". After a bit of research I found out that the outlet is not supported by the homebridge-zigbee plugin. As a software engineer I tried to find a solution for it, so I reverse engineered the device recognition (very easy because Homebridge is a node application). After a while I managed to add the configuration for the outlet to the plugin.
And see, it became light.