Oh do I have some good news for you then. The end of the summer a few platforms are slated to launch an iMessage on Android app.

Sunbird is the big one that is getting a large amount of coverage and sells itself as E2E for iMessage (we'll see at launch as it's in beta right now).

Beeper is another one that's an aggregation messenger similar to what signal originally was, but is also supposed to allow iMessage instead of its own alternative, as well as still being usable for text/RCS messaging.

I'm not working for either of these companies, I just have a significant other with an iPhone who always complains about my messages being green, and so I did some research into ways to fix it a few months ago and found both of these to be the promising fixes that don't require self hosting a server (funny seeing as this is lemmy, kinda the theme here). I've kept it under wraps from them to be a huge surprise when it launchs and all of a sudden they can't complain/talk about the platform superiority anymore.

I personally use the Roku RGB ones that came out last year. It's like $18 for three of them, total house done for under $100 with three bedrooms and all the common areas. They work well and sync to my home automation service, as well as having a geofence option to turn on/off when entering/exiting the general area of the home.

I lived in a sketchy neighborhood prior and those bulbs saved our ass on a few occasions. People would come to the door, cameras would send an alert and all the lights would go on in an instant. This occured multiple times and it worked as a deterrent all of them.

I also have some of the light strips synced together (there is a party mode with them, but unless you want to have a stroke I wouldn't use it) and those create a good cohesive ambiance behind my desk and TV.

I will ding them points for the party mode being hellish, and the app not having a dark mode, but they do sync quickly, reliably, and are user friendly to set up profiles and rules for.

Hope that helps as I seem to be the only one not saying the Ikea ones (I have no experience with them so I cannot recommend something I've never tried)

Edit: I wrote all this up and then decided to look into ZigBee as I realized thats the main concern of OP. I think this fulfills the functional requirements, but maybe not, so I'll leave the comment just in case.

Bramble is a new game that's kinda got those limbo vibes, but with Scandinavian/Norse tones to the story. I beat it in one setting in about 4 hours, but it was the most gripping experience with a game I've had in a few years. There's a few mechanic switches, the final level is an awesome visual and musical fest, and the second to last boss fight was one of the most creative bosses I think I've ever seen in a game.

It's also on Gamepass right now so it's "free" if you have that.

Nah man no judgement. I'm just glad the games took off and I get to share my favorite series with others! Before Tri I had never met anyone else who knew of the series, and after World there's plenty of people who know and are excited about the series!

My man lol. I have 2000 hours in MH:Frontiers on the PSP back in the day. Only at about 300 between Rise and World though!

In fairness, 6 years ago plenty of Gen Z were not of voting age yet. The oldest portion of that generation is 26 this year. Also, back then there was a level of apathy to politics that really allowed plenty of shenanigans. Until COVID, that was the general consensus that politics were for their parents or for their grandparents. The last 6 years have shown otherwise, and recent voting turn outs in red states show a swing of younger activism.

I do think dragging millennials into this conversation does weaken that argument though as that generation has been majority voting age for over a decade. They've been shown to have an intense outrage culture but the lack of commitment to do anything about it, which thankfully the activism and general "fuck the establishment" attitude the tide pod kids have might actually make a difference this time around.

Also, Bernie dropped off the ballet before anyone could vote for him when the Democratic party didn't consider him their primary pick. I like the guy and did write him in myself (and most likely he would've won had he remained on the ballet), but the removal of him as a "default" candidate in our system is why so few voted for him, thinking their votes would either ultimately not make a difference, or that they would allow the opposition (whichever side) to win by not voting within the lines.