I would never buy an appliance that requires a third-party server. Google cannot remove the value from a Zigbee or Z-Wave thermostat like this.

▲

wolrah an hour ago | parent | next [-]

One of many reasons I prefer home automation hardware that uses ZigBee, Z-Wave, or Thread over using WiFi. If it uses WiFi it almost always wants to connect to or worse requires a cloud, where the dedicated home automation network tech is basically the polar opposite and requires that it work entire directly locally or with a local hub.

Other major reason being that "IoT" devices usually have the shittiest WiFi radios that usually don't even support 5 GHz and almost never support WiFi 6/7 modes where they aren't wasting a ton of airtime on their low-bandwidth communication.

▲

gnabgib 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The Matter standard[0] (+HomeAssistant) starts to fix this, but almost all "smart" appliances have this flaw. From Lutron, GE, Apple, Amazon (ring), Philips(Hue), Samsung, LG, Control4, Ecobee, ADT, Schneier, Chamberlain, Tapo.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter_(standard)

▲

wolrah an hour ago | parent [-]

Matter only sort of solves it because a lot of Matter devices (most in my personal experience) use WiFi and often intentionally neuter their Matter support to "encourage" you to use their app and/or cloud integration with a major voice assistant.

I have a pair of Govee ceiling lights that have a RGB+CCT primary downward facing light and an addressable RGB accent ring. The ARGB ring only exists in their app. As far as both their Matter support and their official API are concerned these units have a single element which is the downward light, the ARGB ring is not controllable from any third-party systems.

If these were using Zigbee, Z-Wave, or Matter over Thread they wouldn't be able to do this but because they use WiFi they can.

I'm going to be opening one up soonish to see how hard it'll be to just replace the controller with one running WLED (or even reprogram the controller already in it).

	▲	gnabgib an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Agree.. although that brand isn't very reliable/a good industry indicator/always pulls that nonsense (I have some of their devices, all paired to an old phone on a vlan without internet.. the features "require wifi" but only because they want their app to overshare).