The first post from jDantastic https://twitter.com/jDantastic/status/1135282856085852160 was a lie (or at best a half-truth): you can just walk up to the Nest and turn the knob, and that works fine without a network connection. In the replies, Kelly Ellis (of Ellis v. Google fame) calls him out on this, and he says a) his Nest is behind a TV where he can't reach it, so he has to use the app, and b) the post was intended for his followers only, who would have understood this.