The prostitution comparison is completely out of left field. You’re implying that sex workers are dishonest, which I don’t see at all. The proposition of a sex worker is very upfront.

Lawyer, salesman, CEO, politician, or advertising exec would all be way better examples of dishonest professions.

Well of course, we wouldn’t want “tyranny of the majority” now would you? /s

Absolutely, if full local control is what you want and you expect to get more devices then it’s worth either reusing an old computer for home assistant or getting a home assistant yellow.

Yeah, I don’t blame you not wanting to commit to a hub if you’d only have this thermostat.

Depending on what features you want maybe you could find an offline one with those features built in. I know there’s ones with schedules and presence detection that are fully offline.

I’ve used this zwave thermostat for a few years now and it’s done fine. Only really makes sense if you already have a Z-wave compatible hub though.

https://a.co/d/aEr4gaq