Web Developer by day, and aspiring Swift developer at night.
I have a smart tv, washer, and dryer. None of them are connected to a network. They can’t do anything “smart” without a network. You don’t need to take apart or disconnect anything. In fact, doing so could cause problems if you nick the wrong wire or component.
Just leave it be and you should be fine.
I get where you’re coming from, but given the cost of equipment these days, it’s important to consider whether or not the zero-config big box brand stuff will be around long enough to be worth the cost. While it’s a PITA to spend your efforts setting this all up, doing it yourself using open protocols can be worth it in the long run. And 9 out of 10 times, when you do it yourself, you can just leave it alone and forget about it.
Edit: there is a good write-up between zigbee and matter, and for ease of use it looks like matter would be better for your use cases.
I think what you’re looking for is called a “Catch-All” or wildcard email address. Basically it looks like this: *@yourdomain.tld
, and you would set it up to forward to a real email address of your choosing.
These are typically managed either via your domain hosting provider, or possible through your email provider.
Be forewarned, this does open you up to getting more spam because everything is a valid email address.
I’m of the mindset that if it exists, it’s meant to be viewed and seen. Otherwise, what’s the point?