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Chamberlain blocks smart garage door opener from working with smart homes

arstechnica.com

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Re: Chamberlain blocks smart garage door opener from working with smart homes

#141

Post by dheera »

ska wrote: post #137
CamperBob2 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny you should mention that. I stayed at an AirBnB a while back that I selected precisely because the listing mentioned that a garage was available. It turned out that yes, you could use the garage, but the remote was not provided by the host. So I had to disengage the door and lift it manually, then close it behind me when I left every morning. "Fuck that," I said to myself, as any self-respecting hacker would. "I…

> This is only going to get worse. Manual operation seems perfectly understandable in this context. Odds of some AirBnB driving off accidentally with the remote approach 100%.

If that really happens you can factory reset a garage door opener which will unpair all existing remotes.

Re-keying the front door is arguably a bigger pain in the ass, and many Airbnbs just lend you the front door keys.

Re: Chamberlain blocks smart garage door opener from working with smart homes

#142

Post by darknavi »

drapermache wrote: post #105
wil421 wrote: post #3

The Ars comments recommend Ratgo and Messo. Ratgo for a WiFi board that connects directly to the garage doors electrical and Messo is another cheap HomeKit option from Amazon. https://paulwieland.github.io/ratgdo/

Have those comments talked about their compatibility with home assistant? I'm done with Chamberlin and their dumb app. I want a one-stop app to control all of my IoT devices, and I don't want it locked into an ecosystem.

Ratgo supports ESPHome so it supports Home Assistant!

Re: Chamberlain blocks smart garage door opener from working with smart homes

#143

Post by ska »

dheera wrote: post #141
ska wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is only going to get worse. Manual operation seems perfectly understandable in this context. Odds of some AirBnB driving off accidentally with the remote approach 100%.

If that really happens you can factory reset a garage door opener which will unpair all existing remotes. Re-keying the front door is arguably a bigger pain in the ass, and many Airbnbs just lend you the front door keys.

Right but then you have to buy a new remote, lather rinse repeat.

I can see why an AirBnB host wouldn't bother after 1st or 2nd time, is all I'm saying.

Agree the front door key is a bigger pain, but less likely to accidentally happen.

I mean, I would have a slight preference to have a functioning remote but it's not going to ruin a stay. In the same way that if I went to a place that didn't have an automatic opener at all I wouldn't find it odd.

Re: Chamberlain blocks smart garage door opener from working with smart homes

#144

Post by abduhl »

qzw wrote: post #87
nordsieck wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is your company free of control by shareholders A company is by definition controlled by its shareholders.

Pedantic: A corporation is controlled by its shareholders. Other forms of ownership can be sole proprietorships, partnerships, professional associations, etc.

Pedantic: a corporation is controlled by its Board of Directors. Shareholders ostensibly elect the directors but they do not control them.

Re: Chamberlain blocks smart garage door opener from working with smart homes

#145

Post by darknavi »

tcbawo wrote: post #118

Knowing someone involved with the Chamberlain technology stack, it sounds like certain users had reverse engineered the API and suddenly caused a DDOS on the Chamberlain cloud with their requests. This is a cloud service with real costs. Chamberlain has a responsibility to maintain access for its users. I can’t speak for Chamberlain, but this reaction seems reasonable.

Another reasonable response would be rate limiting user requests per token or user to stop individuals from spamming.

Re: Chamberlain blocks smart garage door opener from working with smart homes

#147

Post by elzbardico »

dheera wrote: post #138
CamperBob2 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny you should mention that. I stayed at an AirBnB a while back that I selected precisely because the listing mentioned that a garage was available. It turned out that yes, you could use the garage, but the remote was not provided by the host. So I had to disengage the door and lift it manually, then close it behind me when I left every morning. "Fuck that," I said to myself, as any self-respecting hacker would. "I…

> That's when I found that they actually DRM'ed the button. The usual pair of wires was there, but I couldn't open the door by simply shorting them together. Oof. That's awful, but put a servo above the button that physically hits the button. Analog loopholes are immune to DRM.

As the DRM arms race continue, in the next model the button will be a fingerprint reader. To make sure you're not cheating, you can only use the reader in the precise moment an ad you have to watch will tell you so. Of course, even then you will have to watch the ad till completion before the button really does anything.

Re: Chamberlain blocks smart garage door opener from working with smart homes

#148

Post by Hydraulix989 »

michaelmior wrote: post #91
mavamaarten wrote: post #15

"unauthorized users". They are authorized if they are trying to control their own garage door. The company I work for has a policy where we don't block third party clients, as long as they use a uniquely identifiable user agent and API key that we provide to them. That way we can easily monitor if they're calling endpoints excessively and make sure that our alarms don't go off when they did something wrong, but still…

> They are authorized if they are trying to control their own garage door. Chamberlain doesn't get to authorize people to open your door, but they do get to decide who uses their API. While I think it's a very poor decision, they certainly can decide that any use of their API they don't like is unauthorized. That said, I would love to see legislation that ends this kind of vendor lock-in.

It's true, under our current legal framework, the free market is supposed to allow customers to choose to buy more user-friendly alternatives sold by competitors if they aren't happy that one offering is DRMed to hell and back. In practice, how well does that work?

Re: Chamberlain blocks smart garage door opener from working with smart homes

#149

Post by mminer237 »

qzw wrote: post #87
nordsieck wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is your company free of control by shareholders A company is by definition controlled by its shareholders.

Pedantic: A corporation is controlled by its shareholders. Other forms of ownership can be sole proprietorships, partnerships, professional associations, etc.

I wouldn't call a sole proprietorships a company. Professional associations are still controlled by their shareholders. You can substitute "partners" for partnerships and "members" for LLCs since they're essentially all the same thing.

Re: Chamberlain blocks smart garage door opener from working with smart homes

#150

Post by reactordev »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #132
dheera wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just connected my garage door opener to Home Assistant by taking apart the remote and wiring the button to a Zigbee relay. They can't stop me, no part of this is connected to their cloud. In any case, smart home stuff should never rely on the cloud. https://i.imgur.com/lNOXdhe.jpg

Funny you should mention that. I stayed at an AirBnB a while back that I selected precisely because the listing mentioned that a garage was available. It turned out that yes, you could use the garage, but the remote was not provided by the host. So I had to disengage the door and lift it manually, then close it behind me when I left every morning. "Fuck that," I said to myself, as any self-respecting hacker would. "I…

Probably I2C interface. If shorting it wouldn’t work this would be my second guess.
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