Sonos has been a great example of this for me. For those that don't know Sonos products are WiFi speakers, sound bars and subwoofers. I've had them for around 4 years and whilst they're controlled through the Sonos app (and third parties) if our internet crashes there is no hiccup whatsoever.
I was a bit upset when I discovered that I needed to connect my new Bose speaker to internet just to configure it, but at least it is usable without internet, so I blacklisted it in my router.
Spotify sends home what I am listening to, why would I care if my speakers do as well. I can also control Sonos through the Sonos app or directly through Spotify.
Also these speakers have only improved over the years through software improvements which would have only been made possible having a connection to the internet.
A speaker's output transfer function is determined by the drivers, the chassis, bass reflex or not, frequency splitter, etc. Software has nothing to do with it. And even if you're only listening to Spotify or using fully-integrated equipment from Sonos or others, you will care if your speaker decides to play ads, in addition to Spotify ads.
Yep. As long as your LAN is functional and the hub (which uses the ZigBee protocol often referenced in the comments here) is appropriately routeable, internet access is entirely optional - unless of course you want to control the lights from outside of your home.
Then what prevents the app from being the path, in either/both directions? Reporting on the activities of the devices it can see, as well as sending firmware updates to them?
Your printer gets firmware updates from HP, whenever HP wants, right past all your firewalls and vlans and non-routable subnets, in the form of print jobs from your pc.
If you want to control your lights from outside your home you can either setup a WireGuard LAN or just enable the integration with apple home if you are already in the ecosystem.
Apple has less incentives to spy on you than whoever is running philips hue.
