Your Use Case is not My Use Case 
First, to get it out of the way, you will find many philosophical discussions as to ācontrolā versus āhome automationā in the forums. And thatās all that those are. Philosophical discussions where opinions differ. There is no official SmartThings position on this. Even their own staff disagree.
An obvious Counterexample to the āSmartThings is about automation, not controlā argument, is the fact that the company invested significant resources in developing and promoting their official Amazon echo integration, which is solely a ācontrolā device under this definition. 
One of the best things about SmartThings is its versatility. There are many of us, myself included, who use it primarily for control. Itās up to you how you use it.
UK options
Because of the lock model you mentioned, is it possible that you are in the UK?
If so, unfortunately there is a current bug regarding third-party use of smartthings devices, called āthe OAuth problemā which will prevent you from using many of the possible widgets currently available. But you can still use the official widgets. I agree those are probably the fastest easiest way.
Other scheduler options
You might also find the scheduler FAQ helpful. However, again anything that involves third-party services is probably not currently working in the UK.
You can track the resolution of the UK issue in the following thread (this is a clickable link)