Had no experience at all with home automation and started with HA 0.98 (Feb 2020).
Prior to that I only had one of these RF remotes with 3 power plugs but didn’t want to have different, separated stuff with different apps so HA was the real introduction.
Having read about the other home automation projects I knew that HA would be the best choice for me and I have to say: I’m REALLY enthusiastic about it as well surprised all the time of it’s possibilities.

At first I liked the idea to use only 1 system/app to control different, non-proprietary devices, locally, but very soon it became a challenge to make the place smart and beautiful dashboards are not my goal.

Yes, that picture of the Belgian Malinois in my profile is 1 of the dogs here.
Dogs are one of my passions: besides a dog owner I’m a real dog lover and I’m able to get things done were many owners fail.
Even though you don’t get to interact with dogs the same way as with humans, I like their honesty and endless loyalty.