Without the service what you have is a paper weight

from here

I've been thinking about this for a while, especially with regards to what the vendor is actually selling you. You think they're selling you a device? No, they're selling you a service that provides you with some convenience. You have to use their proprietary thing in order to make use of that service. You interact with the service through that thing - maybe also through your browser, but also through that proprietary thing if you want to get the benefits of the service.

You interact with a hydration tracking service by using a supposed smart water bottle supplied by the hydration tracking service provider. You get the benefits of the sleep tracking service by laying your head on a pillow-shaped sensor linked to that service. You get the convenience of app-enabled entry into your home by replacing the lock on your door with a device controlled by servers in some far away place.

So since smart devices aren't really smart and aren't really the device you think they are but rather special purpose dumb-terminals connected to a remote service, I figured a catch phrase might be a good way to clear things up. And since the "There is no spoon" model worked so well in the past, I give you

There are no smart devices, just digital services that have physical avatars