this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024

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Haier, the air conditioner maker, takes down open source third-party Home Assistant integration (lemmy.world)

submitted 10 months ago by Dehydrated to c/homeassistant

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10882099

Thankfully I don't use any of their products, but this really pisses me off. They claim that this open source project "causes significant economic harm to their company"

This is ridiculous. It is truly ridiculous. How can something that enables the user to efficiently control their AC cause "significant economic harm"???

Consider forking the repository or mirroring it to another platform like GitLab, Codeberg or your self-hosted Git server, so the project can continue to exist and someone can maybe fork it and maintain it.

The effected repos are: https://github.com/Andre0512/hOn and https://github.com/Andre0512/pyhOn

If you don't know about Home Assistant, check it out. It's an amazing piece of open-source software, that you can run at home on your own server and use it to control your smart home devices. That way, you don't need to connect them to the manufacturer's (probably insecure) cloud. It gives you sovereignty over your smart home instead of some proprietary vendor-locked garbage. Check out their website and the Lemmy community: [email protected]

I also highly recommend Louis Rossmann's video about this: https://youtu.be/RcSnd3cyti0

He makes awesome videos in general, consider subscribing.

As Rossmann said, don't ever buy anything from such a shitty company that doesn't respect their customers. This move by Haier is nothing other than a slap in the face for everyone, who just wants to comfortably control the product they paid for. This company is actively hostile towards their paying customers. Fuck these bastards!

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[–] [email protected] 132 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

The developer commented the following:

Luckily I'm insured. I've contacted my legal expenses insurance and they're covering a lawyer for the case. I will seek advice and see how an expert assesses the situation and then proceed.

Tldr, They are going to fight this!

Source: https://github.com/Andre0512/hon/issues/147#issuecomment-1892738060

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago (6 children)

What sort of insurance is that and do I need to get some?

[–] Dehydrated 43 points 10 months ago (17 children)

The developer is German, in Germany it's pretty common to have a Rechtsschutzversicherung. You pay them monthly or yearly and in exchange you can request legal advice from one of their lawyers af any time. It's pretty neat.

[–] AA5B 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Wow, and it is a real lawyer? I e had employers with benefits that sound similar but I think only get things like templates for common documents like wills and contracts that you can get anywhere, or “free” co suits like you can get anywhere.

I actually do phage a upcoming minor legal need this year, and they couldn’t even tell me , using that as an example, what would the benefit cover?

[–] Dehydrated 15 points 10 months ago

Yes, typically you get to talk to real lawyers. They may not be the best lawyers on the planet, but if you just need some advice, you should be perfectly fine.

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[–] RegalPotoo 23 points 10 months ago (2 children)

It's pretty common for freelance developers to have insurance like this - if I screw up and you get ransonwared, insurance pays for a lawyer to explain the contracts indemnity clause to you using small words

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago

Not sure if it's really the freelance/professional thing others mentioned. Private legal expense insurance (Rechtsschutzversicherung) is fairly common in Germany, so might just be that.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Most home insurers in Western Europe provide with the coverage additional legal counsel / coverage in case someone claims we are liable for anything non motor related. And house insurance itself costs just a couple hundreds a year.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Most professions where action/inaction can result in damages will have similar insurance. Some insurance firms even specialize in coverage for professionals.

If your profession has an association or similar group, they should be able to help you find those firms if they exist.

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[–] dynamojoe 77 points 10 months ago (4 children)

My guess is someone saw what was being built and said "hey, we can build something similar and sell it", hence the C&D.

[–] Dehydrated 66 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Still a ridiculous move. If I buy an appliance, I pay for it and I own it. I am allowed to do with it whatever I want. If I want to use my own solution for controlling it, hosted on my own server, I should have every right to do so. Fuck corporations and their shitty cloud solutions.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

To be clear, I think the company are idiotic in the way they handled this, but I guess the integration probably hooked into the company's cloud-based services - so their servers.

[–] VisualBuilder4 36 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Bad enough if a air conditioner needs cloud access for smart functions and doesn’t have a local api.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

I don't disagree.

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[–] AzPsycho 23 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The Apple iOS method. See a great app or product on your platform. If they won't sell it or want to much Apple just makes their own version and prohibits the original.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This is actually a thing and is called Sherlocking: https://thehustle.co/sherlocking-explained/

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Apple is so notorious at doing this, it's not even funny anymore. The article didn't mention these two famous sherlocking cases though:

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

Except instead of something similar, it's always something way, way worse.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The EU really needs to start doing something about this kind of shit.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

The US does too, but fat chance of that happening.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 10 months ago (3 children)

When asked for a statement, the company answered "Yes we're idiots, and wanted everyone to know"

[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago (8 children)

@SharkAttak @Dehydrated way to ensure all internet searches on your brand deliver a "not compatible with stuff" impression to all prospective customers.

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Better yet, make an example out of Haier. Prove to companies everywhere that allowing open source compatibility can only be good for them.

[–] Dehydrated 33 points 10 months ago

Let's prove to companies that hostility towards open source can be really bad for them

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

I literally buy based off Home Assistant support. If it needs to be smart and it's not supported by home assistant it's not coming in the house.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I was planning to replace a lot of my white goods this year.
This move has 100% eliminated Haier from any of my decisions.

[–] iAmNotorious 17 points 10 months ago

Make sure to check all of Haier’s subsidies. GE is one of them.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 10 months ago

That's the same company that has this on their 'about us' page:

"Haier company history: since its creation in 1984, the company has been run by the same CEO, Zhang Ruimin, who has always had a clear objective: to build high-quality, reliable products. Within the first year of his appointment, in response to complaints about faulty fridges, his radical action of smashing the fridges with a hammer in front of employees has been recognised as an important cornerstone of the brand."

I call hypocrisy!

[–] [email protected] 25 points 10 months ago

GitHub also has a legal defense fund for developers. GitHub lists it on their DMCA takedown page.

When GitHub processes a DMCA takedown under our circumvention technology claim review process, we will offer the repository owner a referral to receive independent legal consultation through GitHub’s Developer Defense Fund at no cost to them.

They created this fund after claims were made against a YouTube downloader from a third party. (not Google)

I don’t know if this would be an anti-circumvention claim, but it doesn’t sound like a bad idea to ask.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 10 months ago

How long until they start banning you from using thermostats made by other companies

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago

I'd like to thank Haier for their transparency. ♥️

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Don’t discount the economic loss they experience from not being able to harvest and sell your data (even possible in the EU, though harder of course)

[–] Dehydrated 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Well that's even worse and it's the reason we need local, self-hosted open source alternatives like Home Assistant.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I sent them a nasty gram from their contacts page. I don't own anything from them right now but you can damn well bet I will avoid them if when/if it comes up.

I pointed them to Louis' video also

I assume a zero chance of any purchases is a larger economic hit than allowing a small diy community to interact with their PURCHASED and OWNED product.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

I didn't go nasty, but did do my bit to point out how short sighted this move was:

I just wanted to say that your silly take down notice on the Home Assistant developer, who was enabling greater satisfaction for customers who bought your products, was a perfect example of the Streisand effect in action: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

Thanks to you, I (who didn't own - and now probably never will - any of your products), am not only aware of your silly, unethical, and pointless behaviour, but have now taken steps to preserve the developer's code for future use.

You could've fostered this innovation, and gained yourselves the admiration of global, active and thriving community of like-minded people. And potentially gained more paying customers in the process.

Instead, you have achieved the opposite. Well done.

It won't make a lick of difference, but hopefully they get the same sentiment enough times that they at least understand what a fuck-up this was, on their part.

Edit: at least I know they got it

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[–] Sorcaeden 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I am in no way defending their behavior, but API calls will always incur some cost - either in backend resource consumption with "paying" customers, or legitimate costs if they're relying on AWS infrastructure.

However, like the whole reddit debacle, API usage isn't always well optimized at the client end, and it can become a negotiation rather than a C&D....unless you're looking to make a competitor as well.

[–] Pantsofmagic 17 points 10 months ago (1 children)

A few thoughts come to mind... 1) Some of their customers may only be customers because of HA compatibility. 2) HA does not require a cloud API to function - a LAN based solution is usually preferred anyway. 3) There are far more diplomatic ways to approach this issue.

[–] Sorcaeden 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

To think, from a business perspective, that any notable portion of their userbase bought the devices with the explicit expectation that it would work with HA would be naive. We're hobbyists, a niche market, the less-than-1% of their market evaluations. Losing those customers while reducing whatever burden or cost they're incurring is probably worth it.
HA doesn't - but while I don't have any Haier equipment to say, the other smart devices in my house which aren't either esphome or tasmota don't connect locally to my devices, but to the vendor cloud API. Ecobee, Wyze, Traeger all do that instead.
Totally agreed. I think AWS API costs are a few cents to the thousand, so a discussion with the developer about the use would be the nice way instead of just kowtowing to the bean counters.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

My argument to that would be if we are only a niche segment then where is the serious economic harm they are referring to? It sounds to me like API calls are happening either way but they don't want to lose out on the ad and customer tracking revenue. Also, I as other have pointed out there is no reason it needs a remote cloud to change the thermostat.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Any idea what the consequence is if the author instead transferred ownership entirely to an owner based in a country that would give no fucks about a lawsuit? Sure, the OG owner loses the project but would he avoid culpability?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Anyone that wants to take the legal heat can just fork the projects and continue hosting it. I don't blame the original developer for not wanting to deal with it, even if the legal threat sounds very ridiculous (a project like this would be the opposite of financial harm, how many of us check if something works with home assistant before buying a device?).

[–] roofuskit 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

In this case the owner actually has legal insurance and is fighting it.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Kinda like how VLC is based out of France because there's no software patents?

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Is there a list of these takedowns? I know Mazda NA is another company that has killed a HA integration.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Alright. Let's get the ratgdo guy on this. I'd pre-order a rathvac today.

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