After trying to go in hard with IoT, I now just rely on Apple Home Kit to unify everything for me. It’s good enough except for the terrible interface to set lights on and off, it’s literally the worst I’ve ever seen.
Same here, I also don’t understand why the home app is rather lacking. The light switches in the control center are okay, but that quickly becomes too full. I mostly use voice commands to manage my lights and third party apps like the one from Eve for other accessories.
I have a widget on my Home Screen. It has 4 tiles for my 4 lights, tap a tile to turn the light on or off.
+1 for Home Kit, using TP Link Kasa devices for power control.