That’s just a load of BS: most devices use autodiscovery nowadays (so no need for IP-addresses) and have “open” local access (so no API keys).
I can think of at least 4 reasons why Homey Bridge doesn’t support local networked devices:
- the built-in main microcontroller is too limited to be able to handle a decent amount of network traffic;
- because apps run in the cloud, all that local network traffic has to be uploaded to the cloud to be processed in the app there; when the app needs to send commands to local network devices, it’s the other way around: data has to be downloaded and sent to the local device (the Bridge basically has to become a network proxy);
- protocols like mDNS, SSDP, UDP don’t proxy very well;
- Athom doesn’t like paying for bandwidth, and they can’t really control the amount of local network data that has to be sent back and forth to the cloud.