Earlier quoted context omitted.
What I’m trying to teach myself to do whenever I think “this is ridiculous overcomplexity” is to imagine whose life it might make simpler. Let’s assume I have some sort of motor disability: it could be anything from Parkinsons to quadraplegia. Having a bridge out to a common controller that maybe works on speech or some other standardised input method that works for your disability is a massive benefit. And avoids ha…
You certainly don't need a cloud defaulted device in order to do what you describe. There are plenty of assistants, Google and Alexa being two, that can talk to things on your local network with a REST API. That controller also has a gig of memory, plenty enough to run a little API. What manufacturers like about cloud enabled devices is that they can automatically upgrade the firmware and they can get semi-accurate c…
What they like is that they can charge you a recurring subscription for "service"