Even an air-gapped hardware wallet needs an online software wallet part to transact and broadcast a transaction. Is such an air-gapped hardware wallet by your logic not offline?
It is not the same because you usually use a medium to transfer what you want to do. This is a direct connection and in theory your wallet could do anything as soon as it connects since you don't know what contents of its firmware.
I have no issue when a USB connected hardware wallet is not "offline" for you. For me it's offline when I can verify that the firmware code doesn't contain any code for networking and USB related code can't access or transmit main wallet secrets. Same goes for the software wallet part that talks to the hardware wallet. If there's no code to connect wallet secrets with the internet, I consider this as some sort of barrier like an air-gap. No important secrets can be exfiltrated from the hardware wallet. Offline enough for me.
Since we can't verify this for Ledger, I don't get why you are arguing against me? Ledger is not an offline wallet. If we go by this logic, then my mobile wallet is also an offline wallet as long as I keep it disconnected from the internet. Lol
You misunderstand air-gapped wallets because they never come into direct contact with the internet. If you have a cold/air-gapped wallet installed on an offline computer and a watch-only version on an online computer, then you will sign the transaction on the offline computer and transfer it to the online computer via USB/SD card and broadcast it.
If you have an air-gapped hardware wallet, then you will do the same in a slightly easier way, because you will "transfer" the signed transaction to an online computer by simply scanning the QR code or using an SD card. You will even install the firmware via an SD card, so the device containing the private keys will never have access to the internet.
You get me. I would not consider things that are not like this as offline wallets.
Air-gapped wallets are actually not complicated at all and I recommend them to everyone who has cryptocurrencies of a higher value.
Maybe but the usability goes down with every step in increased security. The best and easiest to use are extension wallets and mobile wallets. When you use switch to hardware wallets the usability drops a bit and even more when you go for air-gapped wallets. The trade-off that we can't escape.