The author of the article emphasizes the importance of smart home devices being able to function without an internet connection, citing the risk of vendor servers going down or APIs being broken. To achieve this, the author follows a set of rules, including not relying on vendor servers for core functionality, and instead uses local hardware such as ESP boards, an MQTT broker, and Node-RED on a Raspberry Pi to control their smart home devices. This approach ensures that the author's home automation system continues to work even when the internet is down, and they only use cloud services, such as Alexa, as an additional convenience rather than a necessity.