[kgermino]

Well that brings up two immediate issues

A standard furnace and thermostat won’t even know if you pull the thermostat off the wall, much less have any way to handle it beyond “full blast heat 24/7”

More challenging: you expected the sprinkler setup to do the opposite. Instead of following its last-known plan (the schedule) it should stop doing anything (possibly killing the plants it’s watering)

Good off-line only mode in a reasonable plan for what to do without the Internet makes a lot of sense, but at some point, there’s a control system and you need to change it (or even just have one in the thermostat example)

[thewebguyd]

> there’s a control system and you need to change it

Why does the control system have to live on someone else's server in "the cloud"?

There's no reason for smart home devices to require an internet connection to the producer's service. Companies could just as easily put compute on device, or sell some sort of "bridge" (aka a home server appliance) that runs the compute and the accessories connect to.

Fully offline, local network only.

Save the online stuff just for analytics or other value-add features, but core functionality shouldn't require a web service.

The only reason it's 100% internet connection required all the time is to sell subscriptions, aka consumer hostile behavior.

[kgermino]

I agree?

In both cases the control system is physically in your house. It sounds like the sprinkler system did work completely offline (though it's not clear if you'd actually be able to change anything without internet - that would be a problem if not), they didn't set up an account so the system was in "offline" mode and dutifully ran the sprinklers on the last known schedule.

For the thermostat the example was physically removing the control system, which is typically not connected to the furnace through any sort of internet connection, and expecting the furnace to know what to do.

[julianlam]

The way I see it is... I'd rather my lawn be yellow, plants dead, than a burst pipe underground causing significantly more expensive remediation.

I agree it's not likely (especially if the system is running as-scheduled), but it was a surprise is all. What if I didn't set up the service at all, and it dropped below 0 C? I would be in for a nasty surprise in the spring.

[kgermino]

That's fair, though it's not a given that the sprinklers are for turf-grass instead of something more important.

More interestingly (to me): did it have a local interface or was the only way to update it tied to the internet?

[julianlam]

There was a local interface, but I don't think it had advanced scheduling capabilities.

[ChoGGi]

All the irrigation lines I've seen in Canada are just a foot or so under the grass, and it's cheap plastic with cheap couplers.

You have to drain them yearly.

[morshu9001]

Yeah both my furnace and sprinklers require a local controller to do anything, and that just maintains my settings. Idk what an internet connected version of those things looks like, but would hope it's the same except local settings can be read/written remotely.