+1 for the HUZBZB-1. I waxed more poetically about my setup already[1], but I've had that little guy for over 4 years, it was plug-and-play on day 1, and I've never had a single issue with a Zigbee or Z-Wave device. (Wi-Fi? don't even get me started...)
And yeah, it'll be another year or two before Matter/Threads really starts picking up steam. I'll just pick up a new dongle when there's 10 of 'em in that same timeframe.
(Disclaimer: my house is 800 sqft and I don't share any walls with neighbors. Zigbee is SUPPOSED to be mesh and Just Work assuming you have enough devices, but I can't speak from experience on that front.)
I bought a SkyConnect adapter to support HAOS, but it's probably going to be unused for at least another year.