I have been seriously disappointed by the HomePod. The sound quality is superb, but everything else about it has proven to be lightyears behind the competition.
I was really hoping the HomePod would be the start of the smart home ecosystem expansion for Apple. I envisioned new products and services to shorty follow. After a year of waiting for the HomePod to become a true smart speaker, I gave up.
I sold the HomePod and bought two Echo Pluses, plus an Echo Sub, for the sitting room and put an Echo Dot in every room of the house. Now every switch, light, door lock, and cameras are all connected. It works well and costs less.
It's fun to program different scenes. Ask Alexa to set the mood and dim lights everywhere, tell her it's time to make dinner and she lights up the kitchen, starts some music. I pull up my favorite recipes on Echo Show installed in the kitchen and start cooking. At the end of the evening I can say "going upstairs," and Alexa will shut off the lights downstairs, turn on the staircase light for one minute, lock the front door, turn on the lights under the bed in the master bedroom and set both nightstand lights to low blue light for nighttime. Wake up in the morning and tell Alexa it's time to get ready and master bathroom lights will go on, bedroom lights will brighten, weather for the day will be announced along with calendar entries. I love it.
My favorite though is the evening lights, which softly come on at sunset. They self adjust to the changing sunset times, so you never walk into a dark house.
Anyway... I was hoping Apple would bring this level of automation, but no way. Some of the smart home items do support HomeKit but pale in comparison to Google or Amazon.