It’s a joke, same guy on LinkedIn has never worked for Amazon.

This is a joke.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-girnus

This person doesn’t seem to have ever worked at Amazon. I think it should be read as “what the VP / SVP won’t say”.

In theory, Home Assistant could also give users the option to ignore certificate checks.

I also haven’t seen specific details on whether Home Assistant’s implementation allows sensors to contact the internet by default or what setting changes this.

It’s just foggier and less user focused by design in my opinion. But as one would expect when Google and other large corporations were the ones to develop it,

I love to hear about a Canadian alternative.

Well Thread allows devices to require internet connectivity to pair. It also allows devices to fetch firmware updates from the manufacturer. And it allows features to be locked to their specific app. Thread and Matter are more complex to setup self-hosted style; it makes no difference when you use official hubs though. Thread doesn’t have many device types and manufacturers available.

Zigbee does not require or work over the internet, no trust required. It is very easy to setup self-hosted. There is a Zigbee everything made by everyone from large companies to random brandless places.

Zigbee is my preference as a result of the internet connectivity requirement. I do not trust random manufacturers to not brick my devices when they go out of business or choose to release a competing product.