But in many other cases of smart devices where the core function relies on external services, they'll be entirely useless.
Aside from privacy, I like to think of it similar to musical keyboards. Back when synths were primitive, it made sense to buy a keyboard that had builtin speakers, synthesizer software/hardware - a smart keyboard if you will. Nowadays, the only thing you would want is a good set of keys. That means a midi controller with a baby grand/grand like keybed. [1] Best of all, it should be a lot cheaper than an all in one. And itll be just as good in 20 years as it is now - youll just run a different synth on your computer. All in ones dont make sense for many things. It may be a trend but its an overzealous and oversold one. Ill stick with my dumb midi instruments and my dumb projector. And hopefully theyll still be with me in 5 or more years.
To go with the music world, the best parallel would be the increasingly annoying tendency for music software to move to "cloud" based offerings or other Internet authorization techniques. For instance Roland, with their "cloud plugins", apparently thinks all music venues have super spiffy wifi, as they require network authorization every time the plugin loads in the DAW. (https://www.rolandcloud.com/faq#FAQLink17) If Roland ever pulled this authorization scheme, poof, your plugins no longer work.
I have a 16 year old keyboard (Alesis Andromeda) and a synth that is a bit over a quarter of a century old (Roland D-50), and they both work fine more or less (a few issues here and there but nothing that stops me from using it). They don't need an Internet connection just to work. The companies can discontinue support (or even go bankrupt, in Alesis's case), and the synths still work.
Personally, I certainly do not have great confidence that the Roland Cloud authorization service will last a quarter century.
Hardware that requires the Internet to work is no different than software that requires the Internet to work, it honestly is a risky prospect for longevity. The Harmony Link from what I see was released in 2011. Maybe 7 years is a long time in this current disposable electronics world, but it doesn't feel like that to me.
It will forever try to login into that wifi network, even if you disabled the wifi in the tv ui.
The manufacturer then sells the smart tv at a $25-50 premium over the dumb version and it's a decent profit for them.
FWIW - I was always skeptical of the onboard TV smart features, but the Samsung TV that I use a computer monitor actually is actually surprisingly decent.
I volunteered to set it up, and what do you know -- the "OS" was gated by a registration / sign in screen. So, no way to access core functionality (including external inputs, settings menu, etc.) without an internet connection. Even if there was some strange ritual that would let me get through (there wasn't), the average user is fucked.
