[rcarmo]

That is just FUD. 99% of HomeKit automation happens on the LAN (in contrast to Alexa’s “let me pop open ports on your router and call external APIs for everything” approach), and iCloud is only used for setting up keys and remote access when outside the home.

[sneak]

However enabling iCloud on a device via the standard Apple OOBE flows enables iCloud Backup which leaks ~everything on your device to Apple.

I'm talking about iCloud, not HomeKit.