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Xiaomi Home Integration for Home Assistant

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Re: Xiaomi Home Integration for Home Assistant

#171

low-end Chinese phones, including Xiaomi and Huawei, show ads on system apps like Settings and Contacts. soon, smart home appliances might also display or speak ads. there's nothing stopping these Chinese companies from doing so - both technologically and ethically. Xiaomi definitely should not lead the way in smart home automation.

You get ads for agreeing to buy a cheap subsidized device, like amazon devices. There's lots of guides out there to disable ads/msa.

>soon, smart home

How? With what screen or speaker? The half inch oled on my smart ricer cooker? Xiaomi has been in the smart home market for ~10 years, with 100s of products, except pushing for storage subscription in the mi home app, they haven't done anything aggregious. My robovacuum, air purifier, air conditioner didn't screamed ads in the middle of the night. There's nothing stopping any tech company that inputs to a screen or speaker from monetizing ads, except for past behaviour, and so far Xiaomi home has been very good.

Re: Xiaomi Home Integration for Home Assistant

#172
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think (some correct me) you can group most devices into the following categories: 1. Device requires internet for setup, and for usage 2. Device requires internet for setup, but after that don't need it anymore 3. Device can be fully setup without internet, and used without internet Personally I aim to be fully within 3 as much as I can, but some devices are really hard to find at a good price point that falls into…

I like the taxonomy you've outlined. It would be great if the Home Assistant org were to formalize something like it into levels with logos manufacturers could use in ads and packaging. It would help clarify products for users and, most importantly, provide an incentive for manufacturers toward more local-first interop. It might be good to invert the order above and name the levels with something like Platinum, Gold,…

They have a bit of this with their "IoT classes". All of the integrations are denoted as either local or cloud based.

https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2016/02/12/classifying-th...

Re: Xiaomi Home Integration for Home Assistant

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think this is unique to Chinese tech companies? Windows 11 put ads in our start menu.

do you mean putting Bing on the start menu? Microsoft just made them opt-in by default and hoped that folks won't notice or care. you can disable them. for Chinese devices, there's no way to disable them. the difference is, for Windows, having Bing on start was a feature (although a bad one). for Chinese devices, you just get ads - you're stuck with ads while changing your brightness.

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Re: Xiaomi Home Integration for Home Assistant

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious, do you expect them to run and maintain servers for free?

I didn't realize they were selling garage door openers for free.

It’s a one time fixed cost. Running a cloud service is not. You very rarely buy a new garage door opener.

Re: Xiaomi Home Integration for Home Assistant

#175
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious, do you expect them to run and maintain servers for free?

A local REST API doesn't require servers.

That I agree with, although real thought needs to be put into security for this. This is literally a key to your home.

Re: Xiaomi Home Integration for Home Assistant

#176

low-end Chinese phones, including Xiaomi and Huawei, show ads on system apps like Settings and Contacts. soon, smart home appliances might also display or speak ads. there's nothing stopping these Chinese companies from doing so - both technologically and ethically. Xiaomi definitely should not lead the way in smart home automation.

…unlike appliances from non-Chinese companies like, say, Amazon? :-)

There is nothing "Chinese" about enshittification of the world around us. My LG TV insists that my "home screen" is not my property, even though I bought the TV, and invents new ways of showing ads and tracking me invasively. Amazon devices show ads and speak ads. Even Apple devices, even though apple pretends they are above this, show ads in app store search results, and send you ad notifications.

I won't even honorably mention Windows, where my computer and the main UI is basically considered a free-for-all for the Microsoft marketing department.

Re: Xiaomi Home Integration for Home Assistant

#177

low-end Chinese phones, including Xiaomi and Huawei, show ads on system apps like Settings and Contacts. soon, smart home appliances might also display or speak ads. there's nothing stopping these Chinese companies from doing so - both technologically and ethically. Xiaomi definitely should not lead the way in smart home automation.

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Re: Xiaomi Home Integration for Home Assistant

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not buying any device that's not 3 Same here. My gold standard for this is hardware that comes with the open source Tasmota firmware (or which can be flashed to Tasmota). All 75 light switches in our new house run Tasmota firmware and to me it's the perfect combination of simple, flexible and yet deeply powerful. Devices can be controlled via MQTT, web requests, webUI console or serial and not only does it avoi…

Hi, I'm using Kasa switches and not sure they can be flashed? Can you provide couple links with the switch and the firmware you used. Thanks

Tasmota runs on hundreds of different devices including switches, plugs, buttons, power strips, sensors, IR & RF gateways, etc. Tasmota homepage: https://tasmota.github.io/docs/. There are over 2800 devices listed in this user maintained repository: https://templates.blakadder.com/.

Three years ago when I was choosing devices I initially ordered a Kasa switch to try but after a little research quickly realized I didn't want any cloud-locked proprietary devices installed in my home's walls. So, I sent the Kasa switch back unopened and chose this dimmer switch on Amazon because it could be flashed with Tasmota firmware: https://www.amazon.com/TASMOTA-Martin-Jerry-ESP8266-Assistan... (now $20 each in a three pack). https://templates.blakadder.com/martin_jerry_MJ-SD01.html. Ultimately, almost all these devices are commodity components based on standard reference designs. Various off-shore manufacturers will put these in their own different plastic designs with slightly differing button, light and other features. Kasa just happens to only offer their flavor locked to their proprietary app, cloud and services. Even if they are benign today, that can always change without notice and they won't be in business forever.

As you'll see on the user repository, Tasmota supports all this different hardware by grouping them into type classifications and then within each type using a configuration string. The MJ-SD01 switches I bought are Type 73 which is a PWM Dimmer. The configuration string is listed on the page I linked and specifies which pins are used for input, output and what they're connected to (buttons, LEDs, dimmer, etc) because this is something various manufacturers often do differently. Everything needed to make generic Tasmota work on any device listed in the repository is in the config string on its repository page. Just copy and paste that string into the device's Tasmota Config web page and the buttons, lights and loads will be mapped to the correct pins.

These Martin Jerry switches now come with Tasmota firmware pre-installed but they did not three years ago, so we had to open them and temporarily solder three wires to the board to upload the firmware using a USB-Serial adapter. I used it as an opportunity to give my middle-schooler some practical soldering experience. This was a one-time requirement because once installed, Tasmota firmware then can update itself via wifi. Fortunately, lots of devices come with Tasmota pre-installed now. Here's a partial list: https://templates.blakadder.com/preflashed.html but you can just search Amazon, eBay and AliExpress for "Tasmota" to find others.

I chose this particular switch because it fit the modern style of the house we were building, has three primary buttons (plus a tiny reset button just under the rocker) and unobtrusive LED indicators. Today there are many other similar switches available with different looks and features and I might choose differently now. Under Tasmota the three buttons and LEDs have sensible defaults but can optionally be assigned to any functions you'd like on the device, on other devices or to anything else under Home Assistant control via press, long press and double press. One thing to keep in mind about these (and similar) switch devices is that the "front-end" of the button controls and LED display are entirely separate from the "back-end" of controlling the attached AC power load such as a light fixture. By default the buttons are mapped to control the device's own load just like a normal 'dumb' switch, but this can easily be customized. I have some switches whose front buttons control loads connected to other switches but not the load connected to that switch. And I have some switches that don't have any AC fixture connected to the output. I use those to do things like control low voltage landscape lights connected through a Tasmota wall power plug in a panel outside the house. I suggest keeping it simple when you start by sticking to the defaults, just be aware that you can later do all kinds of creative and unexpected things because Tasmota is so flexible.

Re: Xiaomi Home Integration for Home Assistant

#179
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think this is unique to Chinese tech companies? Windows 11 put ads in our start menu.

Windows 11 "advertise" Microsoft services for Windows 11. It's more like feature announcements.

I wish they were that restrained.

While they do include MS services in their advertising it's way more than that. They include a bunch of other crap, including hardware offerings like trying to sell you XBox controllers in popups near the taskbar. They advertise Candy Crush, Instagram, Adobe Express, etc, as listed apps "preinstalled" in Windows. They push clickbait MSN articles (ads) for games, travel, and buying guides in the search button of the taskbar that is enabled by default. They then push those in a widget popover panel too. They make Edge the default browser out of the box (and are relentless about getting you to switch if you change it) and Edge itself then shoves ads in your face with default bookmarks like Ebay and Netflix and Walmart and featured content. IIRC even things like their Maps, Weather, and Photos apps also had web advertising placements.

There's probably more but I can't bear to use Windows more than minimally necessary so I've probably missed a bunch.

Re: Xiaomi Home Integration for Home Assistant

#180
post #176

low-end Chinese phones, including Xiaomi and Huawei, show ads on system apps like Settings and Contacts. soon, smart home appliances might also display or speak ads. there's nothing stopping these Chinese companies from doing so - both technologically and ethically. Xiaomi definitely should not lead the way in smart home automation.

…unlike appliances from non-Chinese companies like, say, Amazon? :-) There is nothing "Chinese" about enshittification of the world around us. My LG TV insists that my "home screen" is not my property, even though I bought the TV, and invents new ways of showing ads and tracking me invasively. Amazon devices show ads and speak ads. Even Apple devices, even though apple pretends they are above this, show ads in app st…

I might modify your argument to say that there is nothing uniquely Chinese about enshitification of the world around us.
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