It may not be that sinister. Most companies intend for their “smart” products to be just smart enough for the average user and don’t spend the money to support local control or anything else. I have some “smart” lamps that are worse than regular lamps unless you flash them with custom firmware. Some newer models of these lamps are more “secure” and can’t be reflashed into something useful (seriously, who wants to talk to Alexa every time they want to turn on a lamp?).