I haven’t got into this yet, but the approach I was going to look into was using an IP camera and CCTV style software, which gives me my buffered recordings. I can then choose to process the image for motion, or use a PIR or push of the door bell to trigger the save (which is less intensive processing).

I did some work on locking down an Android tablet, found it quite hard to do. With CDNs etc in play, the IP ranges that need to be opened are quite vast and generic (i.e. lots of cloud providers that host half the Internet).

I used Squid HTTP proxy for URL inspection, but still, many generic domains being connected to. And I found whether an app, including some Google system ones didn’t always respect the device’s proxy settings and would simply fail.

For TVs, I’ve kinda gone meh, and isolated them from other devices, but given them Internet access.

Completely disconnected from the Internet means that packets can’t make it from the device to the Internet. You achieve this through physically separate networking, VLANs or simply relevant firewalls. With a stateful firewall you can get picky with restrictions on TCP SYN packets to get fine grained control of who can establish a connection. I felt this level of detail was inappropriate for OP’s self proclaimed technical proficiency.

Possibly OP means Internet connected, but not using a third party service to handle the feed. If they do, then they can ignore my comment and select something more appropriate from other helpful contributions.

Just buy a conventional webcam/ipcam and use that in addition to a conventional doorbell. If you’re not wanting it to be Internet connected, you aren’t going to be using away from your home.

Maybe some Lego Technics!

I don’t know specifically for either of these network types, but push come to shove, you can always create a second network in your basement and then centralise the control over IP.

I think you need a butler!

Smart homes are about taking the thought and manual actions out of the every day. Currently, at least.

The really hard stuff that you talk about is currently infeasible. But it’s being worked on. Self driving cars, washing machines do smarter load detection these days, etc. You can buy ready meals and put them in the microwave already, no need to prepare and cook from scratch. They just taste shit and will give you colon cancer if you eat too many.

It takes about thirty seconds of my time to boot up my computers and logon to work. That happens automatically now for me, that’s about the only time saving I’ve made 😄

Doable, make a note of where the wires connect, unscrew them and unscrew it off the wall. Hopefully you have a little slack for something new.

You need to understand what voltage if any is coming from the wall. That will impact your replacement choices. Smart wall stats generally expect power.

I put a Moes Zigbee stat on last year which is connected to three wires (live neutral switched).

Depends on the bulb. Philips Hue for instance work fine as a dumb bulb if there is nothing to pair with. And (at least some) have Bluetooth so you can connect them that way to your phone in ther interim.

There is no set rules, and will depend on the bulb. But I had a few for a while that I just used as dumb bulbs until I fixed my setup.