Pixel 8 pro here. I haven’t seen it either.

Yes. I have a personal app that I made many years ago and used on my Pixel 4 and 6. It would not work on my 8 until I updated the sdk version and some of the tooling.

I use Home Assistant for that. It ties everything together quite nicely.

Also, a lot of the generic devices are really Tuya devices and can be controlled using a single instance of Tuya Smart Life.