> AFAIR Home Assistant + OTBR is the main exception

Luckily this is my setup.

I am not opposed to the possibility of cloud connectivity (as long as it is deactivateable) and even if I weren't I think I still prefer Matter (thread/wifi) over nearly all non-matter devices I've ever used, especially all the problems I had with Zigbee devices will make me stay far away from it. (Even though I am aware that many people had gread experiences with zigbee.)