What does people mean by home automation anyway? I just wake on LAN my NAS with my OpenWrt router, does that count as home automation?
maybe jeedom home assistant for a total control
There are many use cases where Home Automation and OpenWRT can work together.
You can use Wifi Client data for presence detection.
Expose PoE ports as switch and track power usage. (e.g. turn off APs when leaving off-grid locations to conserve battery)
Add a bluetooth dongle and use your router / AP as BLE proxy.
Does everything make sense for everyone? Of course not.
I am using two openwrt routers for reading values via USB2serial adapters on devices not having a cable connection, and serve them via ser2net over Wifi to HomeAssistant server, for example.
I did the same thing. Put an OpenWrt wifi router next to the electricity meter. Add a usb serial (P1) cable to read the amount of energy the solar panels generate and broadcast it on the network with ser2net.