When cooking we'll tell the one in the kitchen to set a timer. Then we'll ask what time is left. If another one hears the question it yells "there are no timers set" so we have to whisper to the closer one.
Another thing that to me suggests nobody at Apple is really using these things.
I've got 2 HomePods in a small apartment, and they typically work okay in what I need them to do, and automatons always work.
I sometimes have to close the app and open it again to get devices to respond IF I'm in not on my home network. Kind of annoying.
What's funny is that I've noticed that it's been better since I bought an eero 6 and added into into Home.
Most importantly, it works for my girlfriend who isn't the most keen on new technology. That's the most important part for me, rather than what I want.
Randomly though they fail to work in Home and I have to manually reset them by holding in the button on the device and redo the entire process. This isn't workable at any scale (it's even annoying with just the two that I have).
I think the main cause of this isn't so much Home, but the available third party hardware. I wish Apple would make a smart switch (I know that's fairly out of scope for them), but one high quality smart switch that actually worked reliably would resolve 90% of home tech issues.
Homepods are similarly bad with basic actions. I have five of them in multiple rooms. If you want to adjust the volume on all of them and say "make volume 50% everywhere" it fails. I have to whisper the command to my phone so the homepods don't hear me and then it can adjust volume on all of them.
Volume and playing on homepods generally from the phone is a shitty experience. Often the homepods lose the phone connection and then I can no longer control them from the device. Really it feels like nobody at Apple actually uses these things in their personal life.
I also have a gigabit network connection with a stupidly fast access point in a two bedroom apartment so it's not an issue of network speeds or signal.