I was looking for a system that required no ties to any Cloud service and was informed that that was the case with Vera, but after my setup I think otherwise.

When I powered up my controller, I was unable to connect to it's IP address (I looked up the IP from the router) until I created an account with Vera ,registered the device and went through the setup. It would appear as if the controller keeps a constant connection back to Vera in order for the iphone app to work as well as other apps.

Plus the controller is wide open so I can't expose it in order to connect to it directly from the internet.

Am I missing something? Is there a private and secure option with Vera or should I start looking elsewhere?

I was curious about the same thing, but without even having to pass the data onto another device. I'd just like to have an lcd screen on the "gateway" to display temperature data from all the nodes.

Is this possible without major hacking of the api?