I think you are talking about the weather station and WI here…Rachio uses the PWS network from WI to manage the weather information that the controller uses. It’s just an easy way for them to aggregate a ton of weather station data for their use in the controller. To my knowledge all “smart” controllers are going to use WI or similar systems.
As for the web use, I don’t know what to tell you there. If all you want is to be able to control the controller from your phone, there are probably other units out there. If you want a true “smart” controller, they are all going to connect to the cloud in some fashion.