Comment by devilbunny

Market size: approximately zero.

The number of people who 1) really want local-only control and 2) can deal with Home Assistant and Tailscale but 3) don't actually have the skill set to put together a Raspberry Pi or other small Linux box and set up HA and TS themselves is tiny.

The cloud systems are insecure and invasive, but it's really hard to get Normal People to understand why it's a problem. "So someone can tell if I'm not home; so what? I live in a gated community, they can't just drive in at night and burgle the house." They're not entirely wrong about that; it is unlikely. The hard push for subscription services by these companies has turned out to be the best way to push people into locally hosted alternatives, because they don't want to pay for another service, but the usual approach is just to do without the service when they realize that the "smart" functions are not that useful. Most people don't have the free time, knowledge, or inclination to set up and maintain Home Assistant. They can appreciate it when they see it done well, but they aren't going to pay for a professional installation and maintenance and they aren't able to do it themselves.