I want to share my small take on this, from someone who runs a decent smart home setup. You want to avoid cloud stuff, if you keep that in mind a lot of options you can just exclude and your horizon becomes limited (in a sense) - but you get the best parts!
If you have a strong 2.4GHz wireless network already (a proper mesh system in your home), look into having your smart stuff run over wireless, no point in having zigbee. If you don't have a strong wireless network, first consider getting one, else look into zigbee devices.
Run home assistant, doesn't matter what devices you want to have on your network, home assistant is a must for a decent smart home experience. You can run it on a raspberry pi 3b+ or a spare server in a docker container. Spare server is faster but the pi can handle it.
Setup all your devices to talk to home assistant, then make home assistant expose the devices to Google Home or Alexa, instead of directly exposing the devices to the cloud services.
Smart TVs are not good, my experience with LG and Samsung has been of ADs and abandoned software, instead get a good TV (image quality, etc..) and plug a Mi Box or Roku or Amazon Firestick into it.
CCTV is a mixed topic, you can go the closed circuit camera option (NVRs and suff) or you can go with ip cameras. Just don't use wireless cameras, everything wired for this.
If you want some hardware brands and comparisons, check out The Hook Up on youtube for the specific topic. I can vouch for Sonoff, Shelly, Reolink, etc..
I'm not happy with ZigBee: Only a single, flaky edge between two floors means one floor sometimes craps out and can't be talked to by the coordinator/home assistant. The WiFi devices (Shelly&Sonoff) are much better thanks to great WiFi (3 indoor APs, one outdoor).
However, we have a few ZigBee remotes/portable buttons and sensors (motion and temperature/humidity), which are a great addition. I already know where to put another ZigBee router to finally make that floor reliable. But I can only do so once my SO&I agree on what fixture to put there, and that's complicated ;-)
Maybe look at the nVidia Shield as a more privacy-friendly alternative to FireTV et al. (at least that's what Mozilla says). Sadly it's pretty expensive.
Can't say anything about NVR.
The remainder I can totally agree with. If I unplug my modem, only thing lost are weather report and mower bot control.
If you have a strong 2.4GHz wireless network already (a proper mesh system in your home), look into having your smart stuff run over wireless, no point in having zigbee. If you don't have a strong wireless network, first consider getting one, else look into zigbee devices.
Run home assistant, doesn't matter what devices you want to have on your network, home assistant is a must for a decent smart home experience. You can run it on a raspberry pi 3b+ or a spare server in a docker container. Spare server is faster but the pi can handle it.
Setup all your devices to talk to home assistant, then make home assistant expose the devices to Google Home or Alexa, instead of directly exposing the devices to the cloud services.
Smart TVs are not good, my experience with LG and Samsung has been of ADs and abandoned software, instead get a good TV (image quality, etc..) and plug a Mi Box or Roku or Amazon Firestick into it.
CCTV is a mixed topic, you can go the closed circuit camera option (NVRs and suff) or you can go with ip cameras. Just don't use wireless cameras, everything wired for this.
If you want some hardware brands and comparisons, check out The Hook Up on youtube for the specific topic. I can vouch for Sonoff, Shelly, Reolink, etc..