Yes, I haven’t migrated mine yet but I will be here in a month or two but you just need a ZigBee antenna like this that your HA install can use. I bought the SkyConnect a few months ago on sale and will be running with that instead. I’ve seen threads online with scripts/configs online to mirror the Hue scenes from the Hue app.

It’s not only a carrier issue but it is an issue only with Samsung’s bought through carriers. Samsung obviously allows that or subsidizes them somehow. AFAIK with Samsung and carrier branded devices they have their own update schedules as well that is separate than just updates from Samsung.

Did you get the phone from a carrier? I’ve had 2 Samsung’s both bought unlocked from samsung and those come with no bloatware and for years I never had anything like that happen. My wife has an S23 from TMobile and has lots of unremovable apps and bloat.