> Despite being disconnected from the cloud service, the system kept running its schedule, when I would have expected it turn off in order to conserve water. I

> Despite being disconnected from the cloud service, the system kept running its schedule, when I would have expected it turn off in order to conserve water. I'd have expected (and strongly prefer) that it keep running with whatever the last settings were. That's almost surely going to be healthier for the lawn, ornamentals, and vegetable garden than shutting off. I would wager that most people with automated irrigation systems prefer plant growth/protection over water conservation. I'm not sure how you'd program a furnace to run to keep a house above freezing without any temperature feedback from the house. You could potentially run it until the area immediately surrounding the furnace itself was above freezing, but that would be nowhere near enough in some cases and way, way more than needed in other cases. You might able to use outdoor weather compensation (easier/more effective/comfortable with hydronic heat distribution than with ducted air heating) if programmed correctly, but my experience is that most are either not installed or are configured to be far too hot [because call-backs are expensive and paid by the HVAC company usually].