[hardwaresofton]

Yeah I think so -- I like to think I can control my router at least, so I don't have to worry about it. That said, probably not protected from the botnet case.

Also, unfortunately up until now I've been saying the wrong thing -- I mean Matter over Thread versus Matter over Wifi. Matter over Wifi seemed like a winner to me because I could just use it.

It looks like going forward I'll be plugging a small SBC into my Router's USB (+ ethernet) and connecting a Zigbee + Thread dongle. That should cover me for most communication options, then from there it's "just" a software problem :)