Live data from Hacker News

Home Assistant blocked from integrating with Garage Door opener API

home-assistant.io

161–170 of 655 posts

Re: Home Assistant blocked from integrating with Garage Door opener API

#161
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that these require some kind of server. Get one that just talks to HA over your local network. Why in the hell does a garage door opener need a server? Oh, data collection. And subscriptions. Nothing for the user. I avoid any home automation thing that has any cloud backing that's not strictly optional. It's a strong anti-feature. In home stuff cloud means it won't work when the Internet is down, it sp…

In the updated fairy tale, the 3rd little piggy actually perishes, because his house got bricked by the Big Bad Wolf IoT service.

It's a good thing the piggies invested in light infrastructure and good logs with their previous houses, the next version after brick will be even better!

Re: Home Assistant blocked from integrating with Garage Door opener API

#162
I wrote the below in another post on this topic:

They never technically allowed it in the first place.

Homebridge and Home Assistant used a popular Python library that reverse-engineered the MyQ API from the Android app. Many companies couldn't care less until abuse ramps up, but given that Chamberlain (Blackstone-owned) has gone into rent-seeking mode all of a sudden (or an incident happened that they won't disclose but prompted them to take a hard look at this), they decided to turn the Cloudflare Super Bot Fight stuff way the hell up on their OIDC token exchange endpoint (you can still request auth codes).

I decided to abandon trying to get MyQ to work with Home Assistant (it would have required hours of trying to figure out what combination of headers would have passed the CF checkpoint) and ended up getting a Meross Smart Opener. It was shockingly easy to install (plug the relay device into the same pinouts that your wall door opener uses) and works even better than MyQ (in that you won't get a weird "close error" that prevents you from operating your door that not even MyQ customer service will clear)

---

I still use and recommend MyQ, however. The Amazon Key and Tesla integrations work great. If they had previously allowed API access but then rescinded it in favor of "providing a better experience" like Reddit is doing, then I'd feel differently. In this case, however, it feels like we took advantage of a backdoor for a long time and the club decided to finally put a lock on it. Shitty, but reasonable.

The next big one to watch out for is Ring.

Ring does not (will not?) support HomeKit. Lots of folks (myself included) have resorted to using Homebridge or Home Assistant as an alternative.

Both are using a library that reverse-engineered Ring's API (though Ring engineers supposedly contributed to it).

While the Homebridge plugin simply exposes device statuses and metrics and RTSP feeds for the cameras, Koush's scrypted NVR platform enables HomeKit Secure Recording for the cameras, which allows more adventurous users to skip paying for Ring Protect ($10/mo)

While I get a lot of value from Ring Protect and will continue to pay it, I really hope Ring doesn't decide to "improve the user experience" for us like Chamberlain did. I'd be really sad if that happens, since HomeKit is amazing and is much better than having a million apps on my phone that don't talk to each other.

Re: Home Assistant blocked from integrating with Garage Door opener API

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quite confident my parents and the many people like them in the world would not find running VPN/Tailscale/ZeroTier to be "easy." Nor would they have any idea how to troubleshoot when those services have issues. Nor would they want to play intermediary between Tailscale and myQ customer support to figure out which one is broken and fix it. Having options like this is great for powerusers, but the vast majority of…

Sounds like there's a market for intermediary tech support

Perhaps in general, but if the problem here is "I don't want a corporation to have access to when my garage door is open or closed" I can't fathom how "Give another corporation access to my entire network to troubleshoot my VPN and LAN configuration of my devices" is the solution?

Re: Home Assistant blocked from integrating with Garage Door opener API

#165
I don’t understand how the MyQ app has such a high rating in the App Store. 4.8, 1.5M reviews. It’s so bare bones, no shortcut support, (obviously) no HomeKit, no widget, literally nothing to make the use easier or more convenient.

To make things even worse, first position above you devices is an ad (for their other devices) and it periodically suggests that I connect it to Amazon so some random people delivering packages have the power to enter my home.

Genuine question, how?????

Re: Home Assistant blocked from integrating with Garage Door opener API

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason why HA accounted for so many requests is probably because it was a polling integration, requesting data every 30 seconds from the server, while the official app either had push events when something changes, or it updated state when the app gets opened.

Possible answers would be for the company to create an official integration, using a change state trigger rather than a polling trigger - or possibly to throttle requests from a particular IP to a certain number per day to incentivise parsimonious usage

Absolutely. It would also be possible for them to create a local API that home assistant can call over the local network. The real problem is that the company just doesn't care.

Re: Home Assistant blocked from integrating with Garage Door opener API

#167
The solution seems pretty clear - buy a 3rd party opener OR use a different vendor that does play nice.

I have a meross garage door opener that uses homelink (a standard that virtually ever garage door opener supports) to open/close the garage door with a sensor on the top of the door to detect when it's open and closed. It was $49. That's cheaper than myQ addons for chamberlain. It works with google home, ifttt and home assistant. (I have reminders set if the door is open for more than X minutes and if it is still open after a certain time of day).

Having to have "yet another app" (myQ) installed just to use a garage door is pretty ridiculous - if you're a power user you should understand the folly of using unofficial integrations and as an unofficial integration provider you should know you're walking on ice.

Re: Home Assistant blocked from integrating with Garage Door opener API

#168
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quite confident my parents and the many people like them in the world would not find running VPN/Tailscale/ZeroTier to be "easy." Nor would they have any idea how to troubleshoot when those services have issues. Nor would they want to play intermediary between Tailscale and myQ customer support to figure out which one is broken and fix it. Having options like this is great for powerusers, but the vast majority of…

They can just pay for home assistant cloud?

1) Home Assistant is not an officially sanctioned option by the devices and will run into technical issues regardless whether it's cloud hosted or not (as seen by the very post we're all commenting on).

2) Even if the above were not true, at that point you're back to an internet enabled smart home device system, and now we're simply picking which vendor to trust over the other. But in both cases, the option for the vendor to collect telemetry data about your usage of the products exists.

There is really no viable way for the typical consumer to be able to both have a good product experience for something like this, and to prevent a cloud vendor from having access to their data. Unless I'm missing something obvious.

Re: Home Assistant blocked from integrating with Garage Door opener API

#169
post #67
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of devices these days that rely on cloud infrastructure, like Apple devices, Teslas. Its becoming more devices. The same for software. Even Microsoft is going fully Cloud. Just had problems to activate my MS Office for Mac Business 2019, which I bought in physical. They now require on @outlook.com email address to be able to activate. Otherwise I can't use my "box" software.

The same pirated copy of Office 2007 has been doing me fine for well over a decade at this point.

We are a small company. I don't use pirated software. I like on-premise software over cloud solutions. Adobe and Zoom ae the only cloud solutions we use. Zoom is obviously. But I look on how to get rid of Adobe, while Adobe Stock has no real competition as the bought Fotolia, which we used before.

Re: Home Assistant blocked from integrating with Garage Door opener API

#170
post #7

From company statement: > Our customers rely on us to make access simple without sacrificing quality and reliability. Unauthorized app integrations, stemming from only 0.2% of myQ users, previously accounted for more than half of the traffic to and from the myQ system, and at times constituted a substantial DDOS event that consumed high quantities of resources. Yeah, that sounds plausible, because: - Home Assistant u…

I have a MyQ door opener (and home assistant)

This is bullshit. Their app is bloatware that they use to try to push additional services like Amazon home delivery etc. I mean it’s just a button, that’s all it needs to do.

I’m going to replace it with one of the recommended devices. This is such an overt money grab.

Post reply on HN