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What do you guys think of the idea of smart homes? I could make a basic setup using https://home-assistant.io to control my home temperature and lighting; the tools for doing this are everywhere nowadays and implementation doesn't seem too horrific anymore.
But setting aside what I "can" do, is this something that I "should" do? How can a person implement this without connecting any devices to the internet?
That's great that they help your friend like that! As someone that doesn't face any kind of accessibility issues myself, it's easy to overlook those kinds of benefits that these devices can provide. In situations like your friend's, I'd agree that any potential security cons are outweighed by the pros (especially if the alternative before was having to leave the doors unlocked anyways).
Agree on the convenience of voice assistants. I've got various models of Google homes in my house that I use for voice controls on anything I don't have a good way to truly automate. Different people will have different tolerances for how okay they are with the data things like that can gather. One day I might try to set up one of the local network voice assistants but those can take a lot of work to get just right. Always a tradeoff of convenience and privacy.