Yeah, it works completely locally on the lan - there's a MDNS discovery and then pairing process between devices and the phone.
You can access stuff remotely if you have an Apple device which is paired to the homekit stuff and connected to the internet (e.g. an Apple TV, we use an iPad which is always at home).
I've deliberately designed my system to work offline as while our connection's pretty reliable I don't see why I should need an internet connection to turn on a light! :)
> I don't see why I should need an internet connection to turn on a light!
I hope manufacturers see it the same way.
I don't mind devices having to be certified, I mostly want to buy hardware of the shelve anyways for safety and convenience reasons and build the controlling/automation part myself. So my biggest worries are not having a local API, data exposure and having to invest in a ecosystem and having the manufacturer brick it remotely, wasting my money.
At least for HomeKit, manufacturers have no choice but to support local network access to get certified. This has cause issues, especially with Cameras since HomeKit requires that camera streams not go through the cloud first.
You can access stuff remotely if you have an Apple device which is paired to the homekit stuff and connected to the internet (e.g. an Apple TV, we use an iPad which is always at home).
I've deliberately designed my system to work offline as while our connection's pretty reliable I don't see why I should need an internet connection to turn on a light! :)