Like others in the thread my smart devices only talk to locally hosted home assistant. I use a few automations to make things easier. My favourite is being able to run open garage door while approaching my house. It opens the garage door and unlocks the door from the garage to the house. I could manually do these steps but it is nice to be able to carry whatever directly from the car to the house without needing to unlock the door.

The other nice one is automating the holiday lights. I would forget to turn them on or off regularly. Since adding the automation they turned on every evening and off around bedtime every night. I have used one of those light sensor units in the past, but it would often get covered in snow and stop working until I remembered to brush it off.