As home automation offerings mature

so must the language surrounding smart homes

When working with, bragging to, and generally speaking with others it helps to have a common language. Terminology, concepts, and processes that are new now may become everyday occurrences in the very near future.

The class of a smart home is determined by the number of device types integrated into the home.

Having 54 smart lights, does not suddenly push you higher in the classification as really its one smart device, a light.

Things like cameras, assistants, door locks, thermostats, and entertainment systems each add towards the ranking of smart home.

Additionally, things like having ALL of the lights, or having systems built for offline use, or hardened with redundant power should also add towards the ranking.

Overall the ranking system should be build such that the middle value represents a smart house the average consumer would use.

While that bar is low now, and should probably be set a little higher than is intuitive, eventually it will need to be moved to better support the common products and features needed to run an average smart home.

I believe a 0-10 ranking system is most proper, where a rank 0 house is one that has a single or few individual smart devices as a trial of smart features.
A rank 0 house may not use the smart features at all, and would absolutely not have an assistant integrated.
A rank 1 house would likely have an assistant for voice commands but does not require one. Rank 1 houses would have up to 5 device types but at a minimum of 3 before moving to rank 2. Common items in this rank are video door bells, lights, a thermostat, outlets, and voice assistants