I suppose the dependency question is answered if at any point the Pyronix and Texecom apps stop working due to some web services issue. I've seen reports here and on other sites that people cannot connect to their systems when the services go down, so that hints that the apps are not communicating directly with the panels and need to call the web service for one reason or another. Am I wrong about this. What stops the app controlling the panel in these cases ?
Honeywell's GX app is free and has no tie with any paid service - it's direct to the panel connection. That said, it's got some annoying features and the push notification doesn't work reliably. My alternative SelfMon apps are free for the Galaxy, but if you want the alarm reporting, then you need to pay a minimal amount for the account. The infrastructure costs £100's every month, so requires this to remain viable. I imagine Texecom, Risco, etc all have huge costs for in-house and external development, costing hundreds of thousands each year and that must eat into the product margins. It's not as if these are global products, so the volumes cannot be that big.