If the machine had an open API that I could control and utilize entirely locally, I can see (minor) advantages to most of these. Really anything that is a somewhat highish power load and only needs to run very intermittently, having a way to control it with home automation (which requires some kind of wireless connection), could be of some use.

THe problem is that they are including this network connectivity in a completely closed down way where you, the user, do not actually have any control over what is sent to or from the device. that kind of connection I agree is worse than useless: actively malicious and bad, and I would pay extra to not have it.