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Haier hits Home Assistant plugin dev with takedown notice

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Re: Haier hits Home Assistant plugin dev with takedown notice

#161

Post by lxe »

gsich wrote: post #160
lxe wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the chat log if you're curious: https://chat.openai.com/share/6386ad1f-a44d-4cc1-a5d1-0e3c3c... Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Accolade, Inc.: In this 1992 case, the court held that Accolade's reverse engineering of Sega's game console for the purpose of developing compatible games without licensing was a fair use. Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. v. Connectix Corporation: In 2000, the court ruled that Connectix's…

Have you verified the court cases? ChatGPT answers are usually garbage when it comes to facts.

Yes

Re: Haier hits Home Assistant plugin dev with takedown notice

#162

Post by kube-system »

dns_snek wrote: post #87
kube-system wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>local HTTP interface A lot of the worst IoT vulnerabilities in the past have been due to exactly that. 'Local' unfortunately isn't something decided at design time, it's decided when someone connects it to a network. Most people plugging these devices in don't have any clue how to simultaneously secure them and connect them to the internet, so they often end up directly on the internet with default credentials or wi…

> 'Local' unfortunately isn't something decided at design time, it's decided when someone connects it to a network. It's obviously connected to the public internet when it talks to cloud servers, and that's somehow (claimed to be) secure. Comparing a good cloud API with a poorly designed local API is a false dichotomy. Would you set up your cloud servers with default credentials of admin:admin? Have a hidden physical…

There's a at least a dozen ways for set up a secure local API. Whether it is possible was never the question. The question is whether Joe Blow can pick one up off the shelf at Best Buy and successfully implement it. The answer to that question is no. Joe Blow wants to download the app, click the button, and make it work. This is 99.999% of the users that buy something off the shelf at the big box store.

Asking why a Haier dishwasher doesn't have a local API is like asking why a Toyota Sienna doesn't have configurable launch control, power-take-off, or a fifth-wheel. The target market segment isn't looking for those features.

Re: Haier hits Home Assistant plugin dev with takedown notice

#164

Post by wlonkly »

hooverd wrote: post #64

I hate home automation! I hate home automation! I have a Hubitat Elevation for Aqara temperature/humidity/pressure sensors mostly. They all run locally. I'd like to throw some smart LEDs in the mix for ambient lighting. What's a good, non enshittified vendor?

Not sure if you mean bulbs or strips. For bulbs, most of IKEA's smart home stuff is Zigbee, supported by HE community drivers, and is priced well.

For strips, if you're ok with wifi, HE supports local control of Kasa devices, which is made by TP-Link. Otherwise your best bet is something Zigbee-controlled but I don't have a particular recommendation.

Check the HE forums[1], too, they're very active and full of recommendations, driver links, and experience reports.

[1] https://community.hubitat.com/

Re: Haier hits Home Assistant plugin dev with takedown notice

#165

Post by Tomte »

wlonkly wrote: post #163
Tomte wrote: post #7

Never heard of them. May the Streisanding commence.

"According to data released by Euromonitor, Haier was the number one brand globally in major appliances for 10 consecutive years from 2009 to 2018." (from their wikipedia article)

Yes, but I suppose the name is rather unknown in Germany. I only know some brands enumerated in other comments (Hoover etc.) from American TV series.

Re: Haier hits Home Assistant plugin dev with takedown notice

#166

Post by neurostimulant »

supergeek133 wrote: post #20
elkos wrote: post #3

I wish there would be an appliance manufacturer that would actually hire developers to create and maintain Home Assistant.

Home Assistant users are small minority of many of these companies user bases (including ours), and these integrations being locally focused often poll HEAVILY causing an upside down ratio in API traffic compared to all other users. The solution is to allow local interfaces (matter, HTTP, etc) but most company cybersecurity teams just freak out at this. Oh, and the reason we don't have a full time team managing HA is…

Yet most 3rd party home assistant integrations are maintained by a single person in their free time. The devs targeted by Haier even maintains TWO integrations in his own free time.

It doesn't have to cost the manufacturer one full-time employee to maintain a relation with the home assistant community. Just let the community do the work to develop integration for your products for free! Just look at how companies like Asus maintain a relationship with open source router firmware maintainers for example. Asus spent a minimal effort in that front, yet the community is very happy and keep recommending Asus routers to their friends and family. It's basically a win-win relationship.

All Haier need to do is sending an email to the maintainer of the open source integration asking them to not polling so heavily and they'll usually comply! It shouldn't take a dedicated employee 40 hours per week to send that email. Taking down an integration should be the last resort because it burns the goodwill of your community. The first step should be reaching out to the dev and work something out.

Re: Haier hits Home Assistant plugin dev with takedown notice

#167

Post by neurostimulant »

kube-system wrote: post #65
supergeek133 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though I advocate for a local interface, I also completely agree with your statement. But, the alternative is we either accept this completely upside down API traffic ratio with locally focused integrations (bad, costs lots of money) or allow a local interface. Another potential workaround I advocated for was a "cloud down" message that could enable the local interface for those that ONLY go looking for how to d…

With my developer hat on, I agree. With my business hat on, I'm not so sure. "Why are we spending development resources on a feature that isn't valuable for our target users?" I could definitely see doing this if it were a product with a prosumer-type angle to the value prop. But for the devices we see on the shelf at a big-box store, I don't think those companies' management considers that valuable.

All companies need to do to support home assistant in this front is:

1. Making sure their app can control the smart devices even while the internet connection is out as long as the phone and the devices is connected to the same lan (local control). Local control adds resiliency to your product, which increase user satisfaction. Don't see it as spending an effort to support home assistant, but instead, see it as making your own product more resilient to unstable internet connection.

2. If your device don't support ZigBee (or other local protocol) and only supports wifi, have the local control api secured with a key. This key will be generated during initial setup and should be retrievable from your app.

That's it. If your devices are popular enough, someone will poke around, see the device has local control api secured with a key that can be retrieved from the official app, and publish an open source integration on HACS. You spent zero effort to directly support home assistant but your users now has an option to use their devices with home assistant and will likely to be a repeat customers.

Re: Haier hits Home Assistant plugin dev with takedown notice

#168

Post by malermeister »

nicholasjarnold wrote: post #115
malermeister wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick is to get a ZigBee device instead of a WiFi one. It's an inherently local-only protocol and you can make your computer a Hub with a $30 stick.

ZWave is another option here too. I wouldn't recommend devices that don't have at least a "500 series"[0] chipset, but pretty much any device you'd buy today or moving forward will contain this or a newer chipset. [0] https://www.silabs.com/wireless/z-wave/500-series-modules

Yes, ZWave is good too, though I haven't seen many devices in the wild myself - this might depend on your local market.

Re: Haier hits Home Assistant plugin dev with takedown notice

#169

Post by meepmorp »

nicholasjarnold wrote: post #115
malermeister wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick is to get a ZigBee device instead of a WiFi one. It's an inherently local-only protocol and you can make your computer a Hub with a $30 stick.

ZWave is another option here too. I wouldn't recommend devices that don't have at least a "500 series"[0] chipset, but pretty much any device you'd buy today or moving forward will contain this or a newer chipset. [0] https://www.silabs.com/wireless/z-wave/500-series-modules

Z-Wave is also nice because it's in the 860/900 MHz band. Better propagation through walls and so much less contention than 2.4 GHz.

Re: Haier hits Home Assistant plugin dev with takedown notice

#170

Post by kube-system »

neurostimulant wrote: post #167
kube-system wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With my developer hat on, I agree. With my business hat on, I'm not so sure. "Why are we spending development resources on a feature that isn't valuable for our target users?" I could definitely see doing this if it were a product with a prosumer-type angle to the value prop. But for the devices we see on the shelf at a big-box store, I don't think those companies' management considers that valuable.

All companies need to do to support home assistant in this front is: 1. Making sure their app can control the smart devices even while the internet connection is out as long as the phone and the devices is connected to the same lan (local control). Local control adds resiliency to your product, which increase user satisfaction. Don't see it as spending an effort to support home assistant, but instead, see it as makin…

And all they need to do to be commercially successfully in the consumer market is: none of that.

Which is why they aren't.

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