Honestly, I was skeptical of smart home stuff for the longest time. I picked up some Wemos (a mistake, I am now primarily on ZWave) and used them mainly to turn lights on and off while on vacation to make it look like I was home.

It wasn't until I got an Amazon Echo before I got any real value from my Wemos other than what I mentioned above. Since then, I've gotten into Zwave and invested more into smart home products. I admit that it's not life changing, but stuff like being able to check lock status, etc. has, as you say, made life incrementally better.