You missed my point. On the contrary, having every light switch in the house need its own network stack is not just insecure, it's overengineered and expensive.
It's fine to have a computer or "gateway" device that calls outbound to a server for outside access, no firewall rules or VPN required. The point is there should only be one point of contact with the outside world, and that's a tech device with enough power to update, secure, etc. As Wi-Fi standards and such change, people should expect to replace it.
Hardware in and on your walls should be dumb, cheap, and long-lasting. Insteon's technology hasn't substantially changed in twenty years, most of my smarthome hardware is over ten years old, and is no less secure or current than when I installed it. And of course, all of it works just like a "dumb" counterpart when the Internet is down or there's no smarthome controller involved. This should be cheaper at scale than "wi-fi smart outlets", if they aren't selling your data to offset the cost.
I understand your point, it's just not relevant. Consumers aren't doing any of that, nor are they going to. Expecting consumers to buy smart-home devices as a whole system and integrate it into their structure is just not practical. The barriers to entry are too high.
I'm glad you bought up Insteon. They're a great example of this, they failed commercially.
I understand the benefits to the architecture you're advocating for. Personally, I started with X10 in 1995. But that simply isn't what people buy anymore. People are buying individual smart-home products, not integrated systems.
The requirements of this program are to address the reality of the types of devices people are actually buying, and the security concerns that affect them.
I mean, fwiw, Insteon is in business today as a new entity. They're producing new hardware and all. It's viable enough a technology to have survived business issues that killed the company.
I disagree with your assumption you understand consumers: Many prefer to buy all products from unified systems, and the complaints about how disconnected and disjointed having odds and ends are have led to Matter, which is struggling to solve the problem.
The major players have all sold home automation hubs, and a lot of solutions still use them, but a lot of the hardware is still overengineered, has a short usable life, and creates security risks.
It's fine to have a computer or "gateway" device that calls outbound to a server for outside access, no firewall rules or VPN required. The point is there should only be one point of contact with the outside world, and that's a tech device with enough power to update, secure, etc. As Wi-Fi standards and such change, people should expect to replace it.
Hardware in and on your walls should be dumb, cheap, and long-lasting. Insteon's technology hasn't substantially changed in twenty years, most of my smarthome hardware is over ten years old, and is no less secure or current than when I installed it. And of course, all of it works just like a "dumb" counterpart when the Internet is down or there's no smarthome controller involved. This should be cheaper at scale than "wi-fi smart outlets", if they aren't selling your data to offset the cost.