> I just tap on that to open the relevant app, if I care to see more.

The key difference between what you're doing and what Homebridge enables is to make the relevant app the "Home" app. If all of my IoT devices are controllable (and can be automated to some degree) through a single pane of glass that I can share with my wife, that's a big improvement over "Ok, to get access to our cameras, you need to go install these three apps and log in to all of them and accept my sharing invite, etc, etc".

Yeah, you can talk to Siri to control the devices sometimes, but that is at the very very bottom of my list of benefits. I want the app UI specifically, and Homebridge enables that. (one concrete example: Ring doorbells don't play nicely with Homekit on their own, but you can install a Homebridge extension and then your doorbell camera shows up as a Homekit-compatible camera in the Home app).

Gotcha, sounds like it makes sense for some uses cases, but perhaps not mine at this point. Seems like the killer app is automations, and I just care about notifications. I'm glad it exists, and presumably at some point I'll give it a try (especially if it resuscitates my Wemos, which it sounds like it can).