The era of open voice assistants

My plea / request : Make a home assistant a DROP IN replacement for a standard light switch. It has power, its adds functionality from the get-go (smart lighting), it’s placed in a convenient position for the room and no extra wires etc required.

Look at Shelly light switches.

Agreed.

They sell UL rated models, have an option for cloud connectivity but zero requirement, your switch still works if the Shelly loses connectivity with whatever home automation server you have, and it's a small box that you wire in behind the switch.