> My outdoor lights slowly brighten as it gets dark outside - not by a timer, but by checking the actual times of sunrise / sunset as well as how cloudy it is, which might make it darker sooner.

Sounds like a task best handled locally with a light sensor. Why mess with indirect inputs such as sunrise/sunset times and weather reports, which incidentally imply connectivity (and therefore more potential points of failure and vulnerabilities) when a simple, standalone solution exists?