Am I reading the article correctly that various apps from the vendors are required to properly control the devices? I guess the apps all talk to the vendor? So in the end the vendor knows what's happening in my bedroom?
No, thanks.
No, thanks.
Other times you can (/must) do the setup yourself and don't need to use the vendor app. This is the case with Broadlink devices where you join their provisioning AP and run a command to set up the WiFi credentials.
It's rare that you can just turn off the cloud features altogether, but for devices with local APIs like these you can just firewall them off or put them on an IoT-only WiFI network with no Internet routing.