The idea I got from the matrix section of the SR5 book is that most people do not own or use a host. In particular, the chart on page 247 makes me think its a technology mostly used by buisness, organizations, and other groups. Typical people and families probably don't have a host to protect their matrix enabled house hold appliances and belongings.
4th edition had Central Home Nodes, devices that all the smart appliances in a house or apartment were connected to, and which more or less ran the house systems. I think that's a good model for 5th edition, at least until we get more detailed rules in some future book.
So what about Central Home Nodes, or maybe Central Home Networks (CHN like WAN or PAN) which act like a commlink for a house or apartment? All the devices inside the apartment or house can be slaved to the Home Node device (A Houselink?), and gain the benefits of it's attributes for defensive tests. It might also act like an RCC, providing cyberware program slots which can be shared with any drones in the house. Your CHN might run a special Home-cleaning or french cooking autosoft which improves the capabilities of your various home appliances and drones. Or maybe you run signal scrubber on it so you can get a better connection to the matrix (say for watching your favorite sports trids). The security minded folks might install Encryption software to better secure their system. I could also see some users running an Agent on their CHN to make for a smarter smart-house.
The "Houselink" device acts as the master device of the network, but is a larger device than portable commlinks and RCCs. It's main advantage is the ability to accept many more connections, say 30 times the device rating instead of the 3 times of portable devices, but it's limited to only devices within 100meters and is too bulky to be transportable. It might protect our car while it's in the garage, but not while driving the streets. These devices are probably about the size our desktop computers, and depending on how fancy they are, people could have them installed into their home entertainment systems (as it acts an entertainment server), a closet, the kitchen, an office, or bedroom, etc.
From a hacker's perspective, the system is still more or less like hacking a Commlink slaved personal device. The house appears as a CHN icon (much like a person's icon is of their PAN) which allows them to try and hack individual devices. That makes it a step bellow a Host, where you have to break into the host's VR environment in order to target individual devices remotely. CHNs don't provide a virtual environment, can't run IC, and don't have Attack or Sleaze, making them mostly used for improving the Firewall of everything in the house, and coordinating the automated home chores.