As I mentioned in another comment, I've been running this system for around 10 years now, across 3 homes, growing in size each time.
I use a mix of Z-Wave and Zigbee devices (as well as lots of WiFi such as ESPHome and other devices), I started initially with Hue bulbs, moved to HA, ditched the Hue hub, increased to near 100 bulbs a mix of Hue and IKEA, door/window sensors and motion sensors, water leak sensors, wireless dimmers, and plenty more.
My kids don't know any different, the oldest now 5 has grown up with automatic lights, and has a smart switch I built for her to change the colour of the lights in her room as she wishes; we occasionally sit together and she choses a new set of colours for each button, my son (3) likes to pick a colour for his bedroom lights before bed using the colour picker on mine or my wife's phone.
The kids are aware that if they don't come to dinner when we ask I can just shout "Ok Nabu, turn off the TV" from another room and just the suggestion will convince them to do it themselves.
There's some maintenance for replacing batteries, but I really like that IKEAs stuff uses mostly AAA and I have automations to notify where the low batteries are, and as a household with young children, we've always got batteries charged and ready to go.
We use Frigate to notify us with a voice prompt across the house when people walk through the gate before they even reach our front door, we have audible alerts if the garage door was opened, and plenty more.
My wife will occasionally have griped with how something works, so I ask her to tell me how she _wants_ it to work, and I fix it.
Overall, other than adding new features, it's very hands-off.