I want to do same thing with smart plugs. There's not a single smart plug on market that won't connect to cloud to control plug from anywhere. I don't want to control from anywhere dammit. I just want control on my LAN.
If starting anew Thread is probably a better bet. Such as the Eve smart plug.
But with both zigbee/thread the problem is shifted towards the gateway instead so you'll have to do it yourself / pick one tu trust there. But here I think/hope Thread is going to have better interoperability.
And if you don’t want to deal with the hub potentially being your next issue, you can always throw home assistant on a computer / raspberry pi / whatever and control them locally. If you want remote access when you’re off your network, it’s up to you to figure out how to securely get the bits from your phone to your home assistant server.
+1 for Cloudfree. I don't know much about IoT but I bought 5 of their plugs and they literally took under a minute to get set up and running. Another few minutes to get data off of them and into Influx Cloud using Python.
I wish more manufacturers provided this sort of thing!
I'd recommend looking at Tasmota and/or ESPHome support list and getting one of those. Both are 100% open source and do not talk to any external servers. Some devices can be reflashed over-the-air and some need to be taken apart and flashed via a serial header. A few devices, such as from Athom, come preloaded with Tasmota. Tasmota has a list of IN-specific devices: https://templates.blakadder.com/in.html Here is an example of opening one up and connecting to the serial header: https://templates.blakadder.com/oakter_oak_plug_plus_16A.htm...
For the light switch in my room I slapped together a relay and a raspberry pi pico and a Bluetooth board (I think I saw recently that the pico w now has working Bluetooth as well?)
Now I can control the lights from my bed even when the LAN is down.
As others have said, look for Zigbee devices. I have an Osram SomethingOrOther, that connects to my Hue bridge, which isn't connected to the internet. Philips makes a similar plug.
The fact is that the Hue bridge supports connecting to a cloud for control from anywhere, so they'll advertise that since it's what many people are after. But it works perfectly fine offline, and you can manage it via Home Assistant, for example.
Shelly is pretty good for this. Their Android app really sucks badly but the good thing is you only need it for the initial setup.
Whatever you do, don't buy TP-Link. Those had local control but they removed it due to "security concerns" in an automatic update. And of course promoting their data mining cloud had nothing to do with it.
Other than every single one that uses zigbee/zwave and not Wi-Fi. You can also use services like Cloud cutter or select devices listed on the Blakader website of tasmota-flashable silicon. Or if you're willing to go a little deeper into the weeds, you can use ESP home for more fine-grained control.
Edit: At least on amazon.in I could not find any.
https://www.amazon.in/s?k=smart+plugs