My criteria is: all the logic must be contained within my home, the devices must adhere to some open standard, they must be repairable and modifiable to some degree.
The Zigbee protocol the devices use is a standard, but from what I picked up from between the lines of the article is that the firm locked the devices because of liability fears. If someone DIY's their alarm system and then it fails to work during an actual home-invasion, they don't want to be sued.
Surely a reasonable solution to this kind of problem is to change the law if necessary so that businesses aren't on the hook for damages that weren't their fault? I suspect this may be a particularly US-based problem anyway given the excessively litigious environment that seems to persist there.
The idea that we're deliberately bricking useful technology devices because of lawyers is abhorrent. Realistically, their owners are probably then dumping them in many cases rather than sending them for any useful form of recycling, which is hugely wasteful. You'd think with the increasing awareness of issues like environmental protection and right to repair, we'd have been more enlightened by now.
it's pretty functional and thoughtful for the wealthy. instead we need a congress responsive to the long-term common interests of the citizenry and not beholden to the singular interests of the rich.
They should still be responsible for damages if they were their fault, though. Just like you shouldn't lose the warranty on your car because you get the tyres changed at an independent garage.
These standards won't be adopted by the market for at least 10 years, because it's not in anyone's financial interest to do so.
The hub manufacturers all want to lock people into a proprietary garden, even if they're using open protocols, so they can sell accessories and "Certified for X" marks.
The only thing that would really push adoption would be a killer paid service that ran on top of one of the open platforms.
Expect after 10 years everyone will be fed up with sunsetting and interoperability issues that standards-compliance will be a product feature.
But then again it took 20 years + the EU to nudge the market towards USB connector chargers?
Oh there are masses of zigbee enabled components that are perfectly compliant with those constraints. From big labels to Chinese knock offs. Sure the Sonoses of the world have much more visibility and don’t but who searches will find :-)
Indeed - ZigBee is quite good for this. I know from experience that a Philips Hue bridge will gladly pair with and manage non-Philips bulbs (e.g. I have some IKEA ones in addition to Hue), and similarly that Philips bulbs work fine with a non-Philips bridge. You can also block the Hue bridge's access to the Internet and it continues to work fine.
Sonoff devices don't do this out of the box, but with some basic equipment you can flash [open source firmware][1] on them and make them work even better than stock, and no packets leave the LAN.