I'm a software engineer, 17 years of experience. If it talks IP, it had better receive updates over the Internet automatically. If the Internet connection die

I'm a software engineer, 17 years of experience. If it talks IP, it had better receive updates over the Internet automatically. If the Internet connection dies, or the network goes down, the house (largely) reverts to dumb mode and we're no worse off than if we'd not installed any of the smarts. The Hue switches will still control their respective lights as long as there's power to the hub, and the Honeywell controller similarly only requires power for its smarts.