Back in 2019, I started my journey of self-hosting iCloud and disconnecting from Apple services. Despite a few inconveniences, I am quite content with the level of customization, privacy, and ownership my self-hosted services provide. At the time I was happy that HomeKit, unlike all the alternatives such as Google Home and Amazon Alexa, did not require iCloud or the need to round-trip to their servers. The only Apple service I still subscribe to is Apple Music, and a portion of the fee goes directly to musicians and artists.

Now in 2025, Apple is about to launch their newest service to lock you into their ecosystem, called Apple Intelligence. They have yet to launch this service, despite the numerous billboards that may suggest otherwise (lawsuit pending).

This pressure to create Apple Intelligence has had a strange side-effect: Apple needs to iterate on AI feature development by getting more control of your data, your devices, and your networking. Although Apple has increased their Services revenue from 46 billion USD to 96 billion USD in just 5 years (Ycharts), they now feel the need to further control your HomeKit devices. Earlier this year, I received the following alert:

Great, an update to HomeKit, what could go wrong! When I tried to install this "update", I was told that my current HomeKit devices would no longer be accessible unless I sign back into an iCloud account.

Despite being issue-free for over 10 years, Apple now wants to lock down your HomeKit devices to an iCloud account. It's clear that Apple is telling their users that the physical home appliances we own are no longer fully ours. Just let me turn my lights on and off without an iCloud account!