That all makes perfect sense and it's how we had always assumed these things worked. However we were told - by multiple installers - that they couldn't guarantee the products they were offering would continue to work for long without Internet access. Even if they didn't literally shut down with loss of power supply they wouldn't necessarily be configurable. That really matters with battery-backed systems where there are different strategies for charging them that might make sense depending on the conditions and expected usage.
It seems a particularly bad design because if the power is out in our area then probably so is the Internet. (Apparently our local ISPs haven't discovered putting a UPS in with their last-mile equipment yet.) And yet these were battery-backed systems that could take over supply for our own property during an outage so having access to their UI to change settings in the event of a longer outage could be important.
It seems a particularly bad design because if the power is out in our area then probably so is the Internet. (Apparently our local ISPs haven't discovered putting a UPS in with their last-mile equipment yet.) And yet these were battery-backed systems that could take over supply for our own property during an outage so having access to their UI to change settings in the event of a longer outage could be important.