I don’t really care about knobs and buttons, but I always skip “smart” features unless they’re built on open protocols and let me control everything locally.

If a product works with Home Assistant without needing cloud services, that’s perfect for me. In fact, I actually prefer buying those products over ones that either force you into the cloud or don’t offer any smart features at all.

For example, I have five AC units at home. When I bought them, they came with “smart” features that connected through the manufacturer’s servers over Wi-Fi. I immediately disabled that (easy enough since the Wi-Fi was just a dongle) because I refused to link my Home Assistant to their cloud. That was a hard pass. I decided that once these ACs eventually die, I’ll replace them with a brand that supports local control. Nothing against the manufacturer — I just prefer to vote with my wallet.

The only “problem” now is that they won’t die. Not a single one has failed yet, and I’m stuck waiting for them to break so I can upgrade to something better 😄