I have some smart plugs which I can use to turn things on/off from Home Assistant, but more usefully, they report current power draw. I use this with Home Assistant to:

- Turn on my electric blanket from my watch 10 minutes before I go to bed

- Make my echo dot announce when one of the following finishes:

  - A washing machine load
  - A tumble drier load
  - A dishwasher load
  - A 3D print

Some other things I use Home Assistant for:

- Force charge my home battery during cheap electric periods

- Turn off the heat pump if the grid goes down, so I can decide myself if I want to use my remaining battery power on heating

- Announce if my printer is low on toner via a message to my watch

- Program a more efficient routine for my water heating than the native solution that came with my heat pump allows.

[edit] I just added another automation I've been meaning to: If the time is after 22:00 and I am home, and the outdoor temp is < 6C and I switch the TV from on to off, then turn on the electric blanket and send a notification to my watch to inform me it has been done. Done this because I sometimes forget to do it manually and turning off the TV at that time is a good indicator that I'm heading to bed shortly.

I really don't care for controlling lights or whatever, but I find it very nice as a common place to monitor all the different things we have in the home: heat pump, evse, humidity in rooms, power consumption, state of lawn mower bot, etc.