There is a steep retail price gap between baseline appliances and their smart equivalents. Just for the addition of basic Wi-Fi and app connectivity, you’d be paying a massive price premium, often hundreds of dollars. And even after that, you may still be forced into a proprietary corporate ecosystem with slow cloud APIs, aggressive data tracking, and apps that constantly break whenever the manufacturer pushes a server update. Chasing high-priced native smart appliances isn’t the true way forward for many smart home enthusiasts.