101–110 of 172 posts
I'm in the process of reverse engineering an appliance myself to allow it to be integrated with Home Assistant, one which requires an mobile app to operate remotely and is connected to the net all of the time, when it doesn't need to be. I was gifted this particular appliance, but the solution is really to just not give companies like this your money. Unfortunately it's easier said than done, but looking for things w…
I’m really worried this will become common practice. We MUST fight against this otherwise they will take away open source from us. Making an integration to work with devices you own is NOT ILLEGAL. I’m happy to contribute to a qualified and trustworthy gofundme to protect devs. I myself have a few integrations I made and would refuse to take them down. Granted, I intentionally don’t use any “cloud” api garbage.
Scratches Haier off list of household vendors. I use HomeKit so this probably doesn’t directly affect me at all. But if I stop using HomeKit, I can and will do as I see fit to make the gear I already own work with whatever I’ve switched to. If adversarial companies want to stop people from doing that, then I’ll help them in that mission by not bringing their stuff into my house in the first place.
Scratch off everything that requires internet access (in this case the Home Assistant integration talked to the vendor's API servers). See also previous discussion on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39044932
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Scratch off everything that requires internet access (in this case the Home Assistant integration talked to the vendor's API servers). See also previous discussion on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39044932
curious, is there a vendor that isn't "cloud-first" today? I've never seen an appliance that doesn't call home
However, the app to control them cannot work without a connection to the server. It has no local device functions at all. It won't even launch if their servers are offline.
That's just next-level stupid to me. Why build in a useless option? If Bluetooth won't work without a server connection anyway, what's the point?
Is anyone maintaining and publishing a list of these consumer-hostile companies to avoid? In the last half year Haier, Chamberlain, and Mazda have issued takedowns or actively blocked access to HA integrations.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Scratch off everything that requires internet access (in this case the Home Assistant integration talked to the vendor's API servers). See also previous discussion on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39044932
curious, is there a vendor that isn't "cloud-first" today? I've never seen an appliance that doesn't call home
The tech community as a whole is dropping the ball by not advocating loudly and openly for adversarial interoperability. It is a fundamental digital right despite what nonsense-ese is present in any service's egregious terms and conditions. There needs to be an anti-adversarial interop specific complaint department at the EFF. Otherwise one day, one of these developers will take the lack of support at its face and ch…
I’m really worried this will become common practice. We MUST fight against this otherwise they will take away open source from us. Making an integration to work with devices you own is NOT ILLEGAL. I’m happy to contribute to a qualified and trustworthy gofundme to protect devs. I myself have a few integrations I made and would refuse to take them down. Granted, I intentionally don’t use any “cloud” api garbage.
* A declaration that no content copyrighted by the hardware vendor is in the codebase
* The code cannot be classified as a DMCA circumvention device as it does not provide
access to copyrighted works
* An assertion that the RE activities are protected under US fair use doctrine for the
purposes of hardware interoperability (even if not a US citizen)
* Any potential trade secrets were discovered independently through the RE process
Earlier quoted context omitted.
curious, is there a vendor that isn't "cloud-first" today? I've never seen an appliance that doesn't call home
The one that frustrates me the most is Home Depot's HubSpace. You do not have to link the devices to the router. They can be operated by Bluetooth. However, the app to control them cannot work without a connection to the server. It has no local device functions at all. It won't even launch if their servers are offline. That's just next-level stupid to me. Why build in a useless option? If Bluetooth won't work without…