Thankfully I don’t use any of their products, but this really pisses me off. They claim that this open source project “causes significant economic harm to their company”
This is ridiculous. It is truly ridiculous. How can something that enables the user to efficiently control their AC cause “significant economic harm”???
Consider forking the repository or mirroring it to another platform like GitLab, Codeberg or your self-hosted Git server, so the project can continue to exist and someone can maybe fork it and maintain it.
The effected repos are: https://github.com/Andre0512/hOn and https://github.com/Andre0512/pyhOn
If you don’t know about Home Assistant, check it out. It’s an amazing piece of open-source software, that you can run at home on your own server and use it to control your smart home devices. That way, you don’t need to connect them to the manufacturer’s (probably insecure) cloud. It gives you sovereignty over your smart home instead of some proprietary vendor-locked garbage. Check out their website and the Lemmy community: !homeassistant@lemmy.world
I also highly recommend Louis Rossmann’s video about this: https://youtu.be/RcSnd3cyti0
He makes awesome videos in general, consider subscribing.
As Rossmann said, don’t ever buy anything from such a shitty company that doesn’t respect their customers. This move by Haier is nothing other than a slap in the face for everyone, who just wants to comfortably control the product they paid for. This company is actively hostile towards their paying customers. Fuck these bastards!
are in violation of our terms and agreements
So what if you dont agree with their terms? What then? Cant you just host the repo and tell them to fuck off since you sisnt agree to anything?
Did OP even agree to their terms?
Right… a violation of our TnC… doesn’t matter. Maybe for the customer, not the repo owner.
Not to mention this is being used to control products purchased by individuals. Are they not allowed to use their AC after paying for it because they don’t agree to Haiers TOS?
Boycott Haier
It would be even better if they just stopped putting microphones and cameras on thermostats and stopped making them with internet connectivity.
One thing I find annoying is that there’s no way for me to let the company know that this behavior lost me as their customer forever unless they change their tune.
I’m fairly sure I’m the kind of person they’d market those products towards and it hurs them, but there’s no wat that I’m aware of to let them know.
If there was a way, and a significant amount of people would do so, maybe the decision makers would understand it’s stupid…
That’s actually the one thing that Twitter is still good for.
It was the only thing I ever used Twitter for. Then it stopped working as I think a lot of companies stopped caring. Then Musk came along and I closed my account.
You can contact them https://www.haierappliances.com/support/contact-us
Sadly, those who care about ethics is a small number. See Reddit as a good example. You and I go “this company sucks, I’ll spend my money elsewhere.” Most people go “ooh, monkey like shiny” and that’s the end of it.
Make a project of getting escalated up to an executive through a chain of emails. LinkedIn provides a good starting point with contact information.
A while ago, I expressed my desire to tell a Microsoft executive to fuck themselves over a decision that frustrated me and that idea proved fruitful. (Thanks lemmy) Just stay professional until you earn your prize and, at worst, you’ll waste some of their money as your potential entry point wastes time reading your entirely unrelated message. Change emails if you care to cover your tracks.
This is ridiculous. It is truly ridiculous. How can something that enables the user to efficiently control their AC cause “significant economic harm”???
I assume they have their own app and run ads/user analytics through it that make them money.
I have to wonder if you bought their products on the basis that they worked with HA, if you could have some sort of claim here.
No, thankfully I don’t use any of their products. But I find their statement ridiculous. If I buy something, it’s mine, I own it because I paid for it. The manufacturer can fuck off.
I laughed when I saw “significant economic harm”
Because that statement is really ridiculous.
So, is the code in question using a publicly accessible API of theirs? If so it’d be a shame if something were to access that API more than anticipated…
Not to excuse this sort of behaviour, but at least they’re honest enough to say it’s about the money, instead of hiding behind excuses like “bUt sEcuRiTy vUlNeRaBiLiTieS”.
We need laws to prevent this kind of anti-consumer bullshit (yeah I know, a pipe dream) and for people to simply not give Haier their money, or data.
I don’t even think this is honest, I doubt that a small FOSS project is causing “significant economic damage” to a company of such size. It’s just user-hostility and the wish to control the users and the products they bought and paid for. Unfortunately, this is an increasing trend among companies.
At this point I need a website that tracks companies BS and gives them a grade level. Just too effing many of them.
Hmmm… Like the BBB but better? The better BBB? BBBB perhaps… Or B^4…
“Know B^4 you buy”
BCFC - By Consumers for Consumers
Hmmm… Like the BBB but better?
No, I mean like just a static page that lists every company and with a grade to the right of their names, and you click on a company name to drill down to comments about them and their grade. A quick lookup reference that someone can use before purchasing a product.
Basically like how they have websites for movies, but for companies instead.
The BBB doesn’t have such a thing AFAIK, it’s just a place for reporting companies at an individual complaint level.
BBB is run by businesses, for businesses.
Not a consumer protection agency.
This was always the funniest thing when I worked product support. Folks would threaten to go to the BBB and we’d just mute to laugh
There’s https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/ for privacy, at least.
GitHub also has a legal defense fund for developers. GitHub lists it on their DMCA takedown page.
When GitHub processes a DMCA takedown under our circumvention technology claim review process, we will offer the repository owner a referral to receive independent legal consultation through GitHub’s Developer Defense Fund at no cost to them.
They created this fund after claims were made against a YouTube downloader from a third party. (not Google)
I don’t know if this would be an anti-circumvention claim, but it doesn’t sound like a bad idea to ask.
I live in caveman times. I turn my lights on with a light switch, and I turn my AC on with the power button on the unit.
I can see where some automation would be really nice. I don’t want to remember to turn the heat down at night when I’m already covered in blankets and don’t need it as warm. I could use a automation to dim the lights when it gets late as another indicator that it’s time to head to bed
🆗🆒
If it works it works I guess.
Badwill. Always a bad strategy. Join progress, don’t fight it.
This is ridiculous. It is truly ridiculous. How can something that enables the user to efficiently control their AC cause “significant economic harm”???
We’re discussing this over in !homeassistant@lemmy.world. This absolutely has to be about them losing access to data they can sell to 3rd parties. The hOn ToS will no doubt have a clause that enables this.
It’s a dick move for sure.
And so they can’t possibly actually do anything right? This is just a scare letter?
They probably can. I’m sure they’ve covered themselves with some bullshit ToS that governs the use of the cloud service itself, and acceptance is implied when you use the service.
There’s a part of me that really wishes it could be challenged, though, by pointing out that leaving the cloud service open to public consumption without some form of authorization should simply be a case of tough titties to them. Lock your shit down if you don’t want people like us using it in ways you didn’t intend.
But, as we all well know, once lawyers get involved, it’s simply too hard to fight this sort of shit.
The only way to stop the advancement of legal red tape is for people to consciously, willingly decide to take legal risks.
The reasons lawyers take over everything is because we do everything they tell us to do. Their job is to minimize our legal risk, and by doing everything they tell us to, we put legal risk at the highest level of priority in our own decision-making.
A conscious decision to, say, take the risk of a lawsuit or something, is the only way to be free of lawyers’ control.
The tos should only apply to the software and not the hardware, right? Or do you need to sign a waiver when you purchase the damn thing?
Not sure about the Haier thing. My HVAC has an add-on “smart” controller that I had to pay extra for, and the ToS are no doubt attached to that.
It’s probably to access their API in order to control the device remotely.
They want to advertise that their stuff is “cloud enabled”, while offering the shittiest service possible and putting as many roadblocks as possible to minimize its use.
Having people use their services efficiently is increasing their cloud services bill, can’t have that.
Personally, I’ve restrained myself from buying into IoT, and if I’m going to do so, I’ll make sure it can be controlled locally without depending on a cloud service, and through a hub I can fully control. I need to be able to disconnect my modem and operate everything even if the WAN is down.
They probably want to pull a Chamberlain and sell a bunch of crappy buggy, inconsistent, error-prone addon services for $60/yr after you’ve already purchased the product.
But yeah, lesson mostly learned. Don’t support companies who only offer cloud-dependent services because they will definitely turn on the customer when they reach the natural ceiling of people buying the product and start looking for extra ways to squeeze their customers.
Or go the BluAir route and offload all the processing onto the cloud. They sell the new machines for the same cost as the old machines, but they’re dumb as a bag of bricks. If not connected to the cloud, none of the automatic settings work correctly. When you contact customer support to troubleshoot why it doesnt work on auto mode, the first thing they have you do is delete it and reconnect it to the app. No care about updates. Its just a fan on a wifi switch now. Total junk.
My Home Assistant software and smart devices all are controlled locally and cloud access isn’t used but there are other, much more important reasons to avoid running it.
You should avoid it because Home Assistant is an addictive monster. It starts as a hobby and then the next thing you know you’re putting temperature sensors in your refrigerator and setting different brightness levels for your bathroom lights depending on the time of day.
Seriously though, the software gives an amazingly useful single dashboard for things you might use everyday including lighting, HVAC, alarm systems, weather, currency exchange rates, and entertainment systems. I use it every day.
Do you… set your thermostat based on the day’s currency exchange rate? Do you wake up and say, “Honey, I can see my breath; the Euro must be down. Alexa, call my broker.”
Like if you were bitten by a radioactive Scrooge, and got miser-sense
Lol - that’s possible. I spend time in Mexico and Canada so I keep the exchange rates on my dashboard. Easier than looking them up every time.
I could set my the thermostat higher on cloudy days in the winter or more usefully, increase the setting when our cell phones are in the house and decrease it when we’re away. One guy put a vibration sensor on his nightstand and tapping on the stand turns on his bedroom light. There are way too many possibilities, useful and not.
Yeah, I feel like all Chinese companies profit off selling customer data first, selling products second.
In fairness, that’s just about any tech-connected company nowadays. Social media, streaming services - you name it. They’re all bloody doing it.
They could have done what Chamberlin did with MyQ and just locked the API down so that it can’t be used outside the app. What a ridiculous strategy that won’t backfire at all.
Yep, good point. That’s still a bit of a dick move, but a completely legitimate one too. If you don’t like people like us having a play and developing our own capabilities against the service, you can re-assert your ownership and lock it down.
Siccing lawyers onto a dev who is helping your customers use your product in new and improved ways is just plain fucking stupid.
“Significant economic harm”
Yeah, like my never considering you for any products ever again you pieces of trash. Why the fuck do your products even need to connect with the cloud?
Fuck off.
Why? Their response showed why: so they can sell your data. There’s literally no other reason. And they can’t just sell a product for profit, that’s not enough, they have to also sell out our privacy for more revenue! Otherwise they would have stayed quiet, maintaining plausible deniability and not taken this step. It’s literally never enough for these scumbag companies…
Oh yeah, I mean my question was pretty much rhetorical, selling my useage data isn’t a good reason for this to happen.
Still, I’m glad you responded so anyone who wasn’t already familiar can get the perspective.
Special shout-out to LiftMaster/Chamberlain who did the same rug-pull on their customers last year.
Never trust free cloud services attached to a paid product.
LiftMaster/Chamberlain
Get a ratgdo. It’s a little ESP8266-powered board that connects to the garage door opener and lets you open/close it and turn the light on and off, and reports the status of the door (opening, open, closing, closed) and obstruction sensor status via MQTT, entirely locally. I installed one on my LiftMaster garage door opener (an old version with no smart features) and it works well! I zip tied mine inside the plastic cover that goes over the light bulb, as per the developer’s recommendation.
They have a beta firmware for HomeKit integration too, to directly control it from Apple devices if you don’t want to run something like Home Assistant with an MQTT broker.
“ratgdo” stands for “rage against the garage door opener” :D
Go one step further and make your own using ESPHome.
The issue is that Chamberlain/LiftMaster garage door openers made in the last 15ish years use an encrypted communication protocol over the wire, so a basic relay won’t work.
There’s a project called rat-ratgdo where the ratgdo has been reverse engineered and an open-source schematic has been produced. You can make your own based on that and use the ESPHome firmware for the ratgdo. For me it was just easier to buy the ratgdo.
