> I can't buy something that just has a $5 microprocessor with just enough intelligence to connect to the internet and send me an email or a push notification if the buzzer on the washer goes off.
1000000 x this.
The only thing I'd ever want a smart device to do is have a way to configure a mqtt or such endpoint that it should connect to to send/receive simple messages.
Just no consumer actually wants this. They want to be sold a box that connects to someone elses mqtt broker so it can work with an app that connects to someone elses server.
It's just another front on the war on general purpose computing.