This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
My non-expert take on this:
Haier claims these plugins cause the firm significant financial damage
Don't care. Competition is not damage.
violate copyright laws
Prove it.
plug-ins developed by you [...] that are in violation of our terms of service
The plug-ins never agreed to your ToS. Better sue your customers instead.
Hijacking the comment to say: Fork the shit out of this repo immediately. Fuck Haier.
Ghetto fork it. GitHub will nuke the forks done via the fork button with the initial DMCA
Fork it on a different platform - GitLab or something like it - we really should diversify our code repos. Microsoft has too much power with GitHub
I’m sure it exists outside the sphere of my knowledge, but this saga made me wonder if there’s some sort of Git/Bay-type site for software developed in the public interest, but is otherwise belligerent to corporate pressure.
Move that shit to Gitlab and have some of it saved offline for good measure.
Make it like the Barbara Streisand effect but for a FOSS project lol.
Yeah they have no legal basis for their ridiculous claims and demands. This company is just full of shit.
It is likely costing them more from whatever cloud service their platform is hosted on.
But, that's on them for not putting locks on their api.
If any appliance manufacturer says that accessing your own appliance (that you own) outside their software ecosystem is financially "damaging" to them, they might as well be saying "Hey, just so you know, we're collecting and selling your data." If you have already purchased the appliance and their software is free, there is absolutely no other way that using a 3rd-party application could damage their bottom line.
Thanks, Haier, for letting me know never to purchase your products.
The project was accessing Haiers cloud API, not just your appliance. Not that that it makes this any less shitty, but there is a difference. They aren't saying you aren't allowed to access a product you own, they are saying you aren't allowed to access their servers.
Then make the devices able to run offline
Just purchase the ad free premium plus platinum subscription for offline mode, only $12.99 per month!
Here's to hoping people start ripping their app apart to call out what information they're collecting for sale.
"Hey! We were gonna charge a subscription for that! Fuck you for doing it first, competition is not allowed."
Does homeassistant even charge a subscription?
No, its free an open source, but it out competes their spyware
Home assistant does not, but Haier would rather you use their proprietary SmartAir2 app that vacuums up every tiny bit of personal data for resale, and could potentially turn into a subscription service later.
Mind you smartair2 has a 1.4 star rating on the play store if that tells you how well any of their software and devices work lol
The software is free, and you would never need to pay anything to get set up great system for yourself. In addition to that, they also offer a service that you can subscribe to that gives you some benefits. You can replicate all the functions on your own, I believe, but the service makes it extremely simple.
Just letting everyone know that GE appliance is also owned by Haire.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_Appliances
Besides that, they also own the following brands: Hotpoint (U.S.), Hoover (Europe), Candy, Fisher & Paykel.
Here's the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:
GE Appliances is an American home appliance manufacturer based in Louisville, Kentucky. It has been majority owned by Chinese multinational home appliances company Haier since 2016. It is one of the largest appliance companies in the United States and manufactures appliances under several brands, including GE, GE Profile, Café, Monogram, Haier and Hotpoint (Americas only, European rights held by Whirlpool Corporation). The company also owns FirstBuild, a co-creation community and micro-factory on the University of Louisville's campus in Louisville, Kentucky. Another FirstBuild location is in South Korea, and a FirstBuild location in India opened its doors in 2019.
^to^ ^opt^ ^out^^,^ ^pm^ ^me^ ^'optout'.^ ^article^ ^|^ ^about^
makes their product easier to use and to be used however we see fit
Haier: You can't do that!
Corporations and their shitty proprietary cloud services...
I don't use Haier products but a similar thing happened with Chamberlain when they blocked the MyQ integration even though it was using the legitimate API and not breaking any rules. No attempt to work with anyone in the HA community at all, just shut everything down.
On one hand, this means projects like Home Assistant are getting popular enough to have enough usage to effect these companies. So that's great! In the long term, we'll all figure out solutions, but in the short term it feels like an increasing fight between corporate and open-source control over smart devices.
Just here to leave the daily reminder that API reimplementation may constitute fair use under certain circumstances.
So what do we do, all fork the repos and upload the source to archive.org?
That would be illegal, and you should absolutely not do that. Just like you shouldn’t clone the invidious repos just in case (/s)
It may or may not be illegal, they're just throwing their weight around under the suggestion that it's illegal. Knowing well that a single dev working on a plugin in their freetime isn't likely to want to invest in legal proceedings.
Which is even more reason to do the above, to stick it to them.
Streisand Effect this bitch.
Doesn't sound like a bad plan
Two repos:
Fork that shit. Upload the source anywhere you can think. Do crime.
Let's hear Barbara SING!
Matter. Get it adopted. Buy and implement only Matter devices in the future.
Needs a year or two, but if we can get that tech widespread, this cloud stuff will be less essential.
That's interesting.
Here is a better link for it that isn't pushing Google products. Not implying you are doing that, just wanted to provide a non Google link is all.
Buy Zigbee in cases where there isn't a Matter alternative. It's not quite as interoperable as Matter but it's fully offline once setup (and some newer coordinators have dual zigbee/Matter support). Avoid cloud connected WiFi devices like the plague.
Not sure why I'd want some private cloud system when HA can work on its own. I'd go zigbee, which doesn't require any cloud.
Matter works with HA and HA works with matter, keeping it local and easier (is the hope).
Edit to add: it's not really a private cloud. It's a mesh/WiFi network that transfers data based on the item type.
Eh? Matter is an open source standard, not proprietary in the slightest.
That is one ugly ass building. It looks like it’s swelling from long term water damage.
It's a shit company for pulling this, for sure. But I kinda like the building.
There's so many issues with all the smart/IOT devices that it's just not worth getting into. Few if any manufacturers offer proper, open integrations and when it comes to home appliance there are more important features than that. Just get up to turn off your AC, that's still the best solution.
Getting up to turn on or off the aircon doesn't allow for turning it on to make the house the right temperature by the time you get home
The first thing I do when researching a new electronic thing is to search "[brand] home assistant" to see if there is already an integration for their stuff. If not, I usually keep looking.
Last Haier appliance I had was a heap of shit anyway so no great loss avoiding their garbage in the future.
Good news is there is a lot of forks that were made by various users. I have a copy of the source...
Unfortunate news is that development is likely stopping so if they change the API I don't know if there are any fellas that will come around to fix it...
Usually, the open source community finds a solution for everything
