I’m in the same boat. For many things I have zero experience in, LLMs provide me with good guidance and starting points. For me it was self-hosting and Smart Home. Of course hallucinations are real and the output can be nonsense, especially if your questions become increasingly niche. However some healthy skepticism, evaluation of answers and additional sources (just searching for key words online) keep me moving forward.

Just don’t try to learn anything dangerous from it, like identifying mushrooms.

PS: all those links and tips in the comments are worth gold

I second that solution. I’ve built the same setup for my home last Christmas, even tried different brands of TRVs to see which one I like. Works perfectly well with a Raspberry Pi with Home Assistant. The only issues I ran into were my lack of experience.