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Home Assistant blocked from integrating with Garage Door opener API

home-assistant.io

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

#321

Post by js2 »

matthewmcg wrote: post #277

They can lock you out of the API, but they can't stop you from installing hardwired devices that simulate a press of the open/close button. I just chucked my MyQ device and replaced it with a Meross MSG100HK--it works perfectly and natively with HomeKit--no cloud service required. Incidentally, the latency is much lower too. The device is basically a wifi-enabled, USB powered "dry contact" switch. You connect the pig…

That Meross opener is rock solid. I've had one for almost two years now controlling two doors. Even with a marginal wifi signal it always just works.

Homebridge + HomeKit is also an excellent middle ground between Home Assistant and HomeKit alone w/o having to go with some cloud-based solution.

For example, I wanted my garage door to automatically open and close as I leave and arrive in my car. Here's how I did that.

I have a pair of dummy switches in Homebridge. One of those tracks the state of whether my phone is in CarPlay mode or not. I do this with a Siri Shortcut on my phone that toggles the "CarPlay status" dummy switch when my phone enters/exits CarPlay mode. The second dummy switch triggers my garage door to open/close whenever the dummy switch turns on/off. This is a work-around for the opener itself being a secure accessory which HomeKit won't operate w/o the phone being unlocked. The last piece of the puzzle is a HomeKit location-based automation: if my phone leaves my home location and the "CarPlay status" dummy switch is on, then set the garage door dummy switch to off; if my phone enters my home location and the "CarPlay status" dummy switch is on, then set the garage door dummy switch to on.

I drew the home location as tight as possible around my home. The door opens just as I'm pulling up to my home and I see it close just as I'm leaving.

As to why I don't just use the CarPlay garage door button: I mean, why automate anything? Also, if you have multiple garage doors, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to which door CarPlay gives you the button for.

As to why I don't just use the button on my rear view mirror: Again, why automate anything? My mirror also has 3 buttons and it's easy to accidentally press the wrong one.

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

#322

Post by [deleted] »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #306
cyberax wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A stressed out underpaid and overworked delivery driver is the last person I want in my garage. Verified deliveries are left at the wrong house It doesn't work like this. Delivery workers use an app that opens the door, so if they are at a wrong location, it will be immediately apparent.

Subject to location service accuracy, which as we know, is ±1m... in movies, ±10m in reality... except more often it's ±50m or worse, because who knows why.

[deleted]

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

#323

Post by cyberax »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #306
cyberax wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A stressed out underpaid and overworked delivery driver is the last person I want in my garage. Verified deliveries are left at the wrong house It doesn't work like this. Delivery workers use an app that opens the door, so if they are at a wrong location, it will be immediately apparent.

Subject to location service accuracy, which as we know, is ±1m... in movies, ±10m in reality... except more often it's ±50m or worse, because who knows why.

This can happen. A delivery person comes to a door, presses the button in their app, and nothing happens. So it's immediately obvious that they are at a wrong location.

And they know that they can't just leave the package there, they have to find the correct door. And there's a flow in the Amazon delivery app to mark an incorrect geolocation, so they won't be penalized for taking longer time.

The app also has pictures of the location in question, to minimize the confusion.

From the homeowner's side, the garage door will be open for half a minute or so with nobody nearby. It's possible for a burglar to use this time to quickly run inside. But the probability of that is pretty low, and there'll be a camera recording of that.

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

#324

Post by YaBa »

I usually check up compatibility with Home Assistant and if the service is cloud or if it can work locally. If both check, they have a new customer, otherwise, there are plenty of brands and products out there.

Protest with your wallet, buy from others, the sooner the hardware companies realize this is a stupid move (locking down), the sooner we'll have better integrations.

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

#325

Post by doctorpangloss »

cptcobalt wrote: post #282
paulgerhardt wrote: post #234

Partially responsible for this. (Sold Lockitron to Chamberlain in 2017 which became the basis for Amazon Key integrations.) Contrary to the popular sentiment in a lot of the comments here, there’s not much value in the analytics. As we all painfully found out in the 2010’s, there are only two viable recurring revenue streams in the IoT space - charging for video storage and charging for commercial access. Chamberlain…

I know it's a distraction and orthogonal to your point, but your statement of a "key fob for your Tesla for $300" is fallacious and incorrect. Tesla uses Phone Key with with the Tesla app as your primary method of unlocking the car, with a $20 NFC card as fallback, and the limit of paired phones is above any practical real-world use. If you want a keyfob as a status symbol, it's $175. (Mine is a desk ornament, it doe…

Yes, I mean surely Chamberlain could maintain a correct and official API endpoint for HomeAssistant users for the kopecks it would cost. It’s all a big money grab.

I was burned by this change. I don’t know if anyone at Chamberlain is reading this, but you guys have neighbors, users just wanna keep their home safe. You’re one TikTok away from a crisis when you do stuff that is anti-consumer.

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

#326

Post by ndriscoll »

twicetwice wrote: post #199
giancarlostoro wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not... just allow HA receive callback events at that point when things change? I feel like this has an easy resolve that doesn't piss off your power user customers, and makes them encourage others to invest in your products, IE power users, and they'll come back because despite being a little extra engineering effort, they were glad you thought of them.

Good suggestion, but where and how does HA receive callbacks? I would guess that almost all HA instances are behind residential LANs and most aren't accessible on the public internet. You could use dynamic DNS and forward ports, but that's flaky, you might run into CGNAT, etc. And anyway, it's best if your HA instance isn't publicly addressable; mine is only accessible over my personal WireGuard VPN and I intend to k…

Open a TCP connection from the instance to the cloud service. I don't know about all consumer routers, but I just checked mine and the default TCP established timeout is 7440 seconds. Idle timeouts are supposed to be at least 2 hours.

If you served the entire US (130 million households) and had a 1 hour keepalive, that's only 36k packets per second, which is nothing.

You could also auto-train the idle timeout by using a pair of TCP connections. One uses a known good value while the other probes upwards until it finds its connections start getting closed (with some optional binary search fanciness), feeding new known good values back to the first.

(Obviously the no-cloud solution is better still)

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

#327

Post by Nextgrid »

paulgerhardt wrote: post #234

Partially responsible for this. (Sold Lockitron to Chamberlain in 2017 which became the basis for Amazon Key integrations.) Contrary to the popular sentiment in a lot of the comments here, there’s not much value in the analytics. As we all painfully found out in the 2010’s, there are only two viable recurring revenue streams in the IoT space - charging for video storage and charging for commercial access. Chamberlain…

Why should the garage door manufacturer take a cut if a third-party wants to use/access my garage door (which sells for real money and isn't advertised as a rental).

If a homeowner wants to let Amazon, Walmart, etc to open their garage door, it should be up to him to provide them with an access token/secret/etc to enter, just like you can put a door keycode in the order notes. The interaction should be purely between him and the retailer and there is absolutely no need for some rent-seeking scum to be involved.

The disgusting business model you seem to be justifying is akin to house builders/contractors being perpetually owed a cut every time you invite over a guest into your house or they switch on the lights.

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

#328

Post by Nextgrid »

bluGill wrote: post #284
tech_ken wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying that retailers will pay Chamberlain to act as more or less a clearinghouse for package deliveries in my garage, and that in order to successfully operate this model Chamberlain needs to funnel all users through their proprietary channels in order to fully vet the delivery transaction? Or at least to prevent HA users from nibbling at Chamberlain's lunch with DIY equivalents? Do you think that they wil…

For retailers I want someone to verify that they are legitimate. I don't want random people in my garage. If someone enters my garage when I'm not home they better really be agents for WalMart/Amazon/target/UPS (as opposed to WolMort/Amozan/targit/USP...) , and whatever company does that does background checks on drivers. Probably they also need to have other cameras in their vehicles so that drivers trying to steal…

But that can be achieved by giving the retailer a one-off access code/secret which will be handed to the delivery driver by the retailer's company?

At no point does "preventing random people in your garage" required a greedy middleman in the path between you and whoever you want to give your garage door access code.

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

#330

Post by Nextgrid »

efitz wrote: post #318
beeboobaa wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would any of those monetization strategies require fucking over your customers like this? How are they incompatible?

They are afraid a potential partner will use the automation meant for customers. This is just more enshittification in order to exploit revenue channels other than direct sales.

> They are afraid a potential partner will use the automation meant for customers.

But isn't the door property of the customer? In this case it is perfectly the customer's choice and right if they want to use the customer-facing API to let a delivery company in.

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