This Smart Home Company Attacked Open Source..
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- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2024
- Haier, makers of many home appliances, including a range of smart home appliances, started attacking a Home Assistant community member, threatening legal action against them unless they took down their Home Assistant integration. Let's talk about what happened.
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So Haier Europe threatened an open source software/plugin developer (Andre Basche), then did a 180 but never bothered to actually apologize for their outright arrogant and respectless behavior ???
My response would be : KEEP BOYCOTTING HAIER EU !!!
i may be one of the first but my dishwasher packed in and i actively choose another manufacturer purely due to this
good! companies that do this kind of shit do not deserve to stay in business.
Looking at the full video they seem to have recognized their mistake. At least the US branch seems to know what they are going. It would not surprise me if the mail was send by a someone ignorant of the bigger picture and their company vision.
Let's hope Matter will bring positive change over the next few years in the appliance space
Why did you buy a washing machine that isn’t a Miele in the first place. Big mistake 😊
@@Ewoodster hm, i wonder if miele devices also try to phone home...
anyway, it is definitely not a good idea to put such devices on the internet. in last weeks security now (episode 957) they talked about a washing machine that generated over 3 GB if internet traffic per day.
Yes of course this will make a huge dent in on their record turn over of 32 billion $ and will not cause a hole in your pocket right?? Guess not
Thanks for highlighting this issue Lewis. The sooner "smart" product companies realise that just because they supply a useful device doesn't give them free access to our wallets the better!
Agreed!
better don't buy anything 'smart'. they can run any code they want on those devices
Is anyone maintaining, like, a Google Sheets spreadsheet with a “Never Buy Anything from these Companies No Matter What” list for companies like Haier and Chamberlain?
Because as of now, I won’t ever touch these companies.
please create one and share
Following! Would love to have a list like that
Make sure Tuya is on the list
I already created a repo for it. I'm just unable to share it, because YT deletes my comments then.
@@ChristopherMahnYou could tell us how to find your account so we can search for the repo
Just like you said, Haier made the choice to require "their" products to use AWS. Haier could enable a local API or sale a hub product for those of us wanting local control. The problem with that is it means once they shutdown the servers your AC won't lose the functionality you bought and paid for. They can't have that; if there's no reason for you to buy a new appliance you'll just keep using the one you already OWN.
Local control would be great, but most likely won't buy a "hub" just for their appliance for local control. I do wish with esp32s being so cheap that someone could offer a solution to manufacturers with a prebaked "API" they could potentially just plug in, but that's probably asking for too much as they would still have to integrate it in some way.
Also consider that they want your data on usage too. That is valuable to them, so local only control would hurt that.
My washer and dryer are cloud dependent for many features you can't do at the unit itself. You can't even set a delayed start without the app. I didn't know that when I bought it and it's dumb. If they shut down their servers (In this case LG), I'm SOL and missing a bunch of functionality. It should be criminal.
It's about your independence: large companies happen to think you're not entitled to it - only corporations and high net worth individuals are. Pretty soon turning your thermostat too high or too low will be subject for FAANG approval and good will just like your navigation route or your FB post. Part of the reason is, if only 30% of all cars are electric, the current grid won't sustain all of them charging overnight. They're not taxing the EV ownders for the grid upgrade as that's too few people to spread the $$$ and will simply make folks go back to regular cars. To get you (regardless of your own car ownership) to pay for grid upgrade they'll wait for it to start failing and will ration everyone's AC's till you agree to pay for the souped-up grid. It sounds like I'm making this up. It *should* sound like I'm making this up. I'm not: www.bobvila.com/articles/power-company-control-thermostat/
blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/electric-utilities-can-now-adjust-your-nest-thermostat-to-shift-energy-demand/
@@frankmthompson It IS criminal ...
@@capnkirk5528 As far as i know, it's not criminal in the US. My WearOS watch had Google Assistant functionality when I got it, They have since stripped that out. I now have a less featured piece of tech. No one is going after Google/Mobvoi for that.
Maybe in some countries it's criminal, but in the US it is not.
@@frankmthompson technically, you can still get that data if the user is willing to opt in to telemetry. a local installation doesn't preclude that from being an option. albeit, maybe they wouldn't get near as much buy-in since I would suspect a lot of people would opt-out.
Haier brands in Europe are Haier (Mainly refrigeration), Candy (Italian) and Hoover. Now you know.......
saved me a search
Fun fact: there's no easier way to find a good repository than by looking for a repository that received a takedown notice 😂😉
I feel like the community should get together and put together a smart home standards doc with best practices such as local api and then we can push that onto companies when they act like this
As an example of what "standards" look like, Zigbee is such a standard. However many hubs and routers block messages from competing devices. New standards alone won't work because they will always be a compromise of functionality versus market access. Like Zigbee, the "standards" writers will always have an agenda that does not match ours.
Matter is close, isn't it?
Genuine question because I've not spent too much time looking into it.
I personally prefer the days when network connected devices could just be configured with a crappy web interface or even a telnet command line interface. I should be able to set the IP address of my smart light bulb without a Chinese app or having the manufacturer's web servers approve it.
I actually had a whole site I was working on for this about a year ago that was really cool but fell by the wayside. Maybe I need to pick it up again sometime!
If you want a valid standard start buying ZWave devices. That is what a proper standard looks like.
Otherwise the best course of action would be to start a company with a focus on local control and following the standards correctly.
I agree, this would be useful. I'm convinced Haier did this because of sheer incompetence. They saw an increase in API calls, tracked it down to this github repo and some "manager" told one employee "make it go offline, and threaten legal action so they think it's serious", thinking it would be settled within a week. All that while being absolutely oblivious to the community behind all this and how deep it actually goes.
I hope the aftermath of this will have positive outcome for HA or at least teach them a lesson.
Last year, we almost replaced all our kitchen appliances with Haier but in the end decided not to as we didn't see much point in that at the time but decided to postpone that... Now Haier is off the list!
You dodged a smart home bullet there!!
Hopefully you also avoided their other brand names: General Electric Appliances, Hotpoint, Hoover, Fisher & Paykel, and Candy
I also would like to see more companies partner with Home Assistant to develop official integrations for their products.
I appreciate Lewis for bringing this issue to attention.
Would be excellent to see more companies embrace HA
I'm lost why you need it? I put an arduino on my AC, and my raspberry pi2 tells it to turn on and off. Same for the garage door opener, and the window alarms. NSA will never gain access. It is no ones business what my home is doing.
Toyota did this too a while back for their home assistant integration, claimed it was 'stolen IP' which was ridiculous...
Wasn’t it Mazda?
@@benwhittle7204 Mazda might have done it too? But I have a Toyota and was using it...
@@benwhittle7204Yep
Mazda just did too a couple of months ago >:(
Honda also hit a lot of 3D printing models for things which were not IP violations
In generell I wish much more companies would work together with HA for official integrations.
We can dream!
Probably won't happen if the company don't use it as a selling point or are out of integrations to support. HA in the smart home space for consumers is so small. Even the tiny company I work for have close to the same installations in a few tiny countriesthan TOTAL HA installs in the world based on the 320k installs acording to HA statistics. Then add they roughly 4-5 times that don't have statistics enabled in HAs own estimates ....1.2-1.5m Homes in the world....we have over 1m homes in two small countries....
If we just look our region HA have 50-80k installs using the same 4-5x math.... it is tiny, that is 2% of smart home installations compared to just us, we are not alone in our market and only do some stuff. There is also work keeping a HA integration up to date and working. Compared to ANY other integration, HA is just too tiny of a market to spend time maintaining, and the HA people find ways anyway. We just tell customers to use add the devices a homekit device in HA instead if they really want them in HA.
Note to self.... Avoid "cloud based anything including "eco-systems" for Home Automation (and really almost everything else. Use only products (sensors and control points) that support MQTT (like Tasmota). Then we will all have global flexibility worst case. This, like Chamberlain, indicate what our future will be like. What if our Hue devices suddenly stopped working? It appears to be in the cards as a possibility.
Cloud is just an euphemism for "someone else's computer you have no control or ownership over".
@@kaseyboles30 Correct! It also means that that someone else gets access and ownership of all of your metadata and can shut it down on a whim. I designed and built my own "ecosystem" to avoid this exact thing. No cloud required nor allowed.
@@wacobeer6469 I'm fine with using "The cloud" as a backup, AFTER encrypting the data with a known good encryption system. But not as THE backup, or even the only offsite backup if that's what's desired.
I'm not a fan of using proprietary software even if it uses MQTT. The company can always decide to discontinue it's support, update and break featured, and their cloud features can be a security risk. Flashing ESPHOME makes me trust my devices completely. Tasmota would work similarly.
@@wacobeer6469 that said encrypting and uploading a backup of anything critical to a cloud storage provider or two is fine as long as it's a secure encryption system you trust fully.
All those flavors and they chose salty. Why not send the guy an email with an offer to hire him or pay him to write better software for them? lmao they can certainly afford it with 32B in profits!
This is a perfect case to highlight the importance of cloudless automation on both the part of the users and manufacturers. They want to hold their customers hostage by denying them use of all the features of a product the customer purchased unless they pay a subscription or are in some other way dependent on those companies--even if it means losing all functionality when the company gets bored of supporting "legacy" products. Planned obsolescence for the digital age and it not only wastes resources by forcing us to continuously buy new products, it is an egregious violation of the right of ownership. If the company does not want to allow modification of a device, they should lease it instead of selling it. As a renter, I would have to get permission from the landlord to modify my dwelling, but if I BUY a house, I can do as I please with it--it is no different with any other possession; Once I give up my money--a small representation of the time I spent working--that product is mine to do with as I see fit.
Repo forked.
there's no excuse for cloud automation when average mobile phone is now powerful enough to act as server for all the automation
We always bought Haier products until now. Both of our washer and tumble dryer are Haier products (Candy) and will soon be replaced by a company that will support open source.
Candy? So Haier is a b company.
This just proves the point that these centralized smart device servers are not for "quality of service" or "minimizing downtime" for the customers. Using these cloud devices how you would think is intended is not sustainable for these companies. It's all about data collection and subscriptions for basically no benefits.
Pretty much unfortunately
I refused to put my Litterbox on the internet. I don't want biden saying my cat takes to may craps. It is ridiculous, it has Bluetooth, and wifi. It isn't like you can do anything if you aren't home, so it can talk to you in the house fine.
Water board put in smart meters, but will not tell my how I can read them. Why should I have to wait till the end of the month to find out I have a broken pipe? If I can read it I can spot water leaking within minutes.
Bravo! My opinion as well, they harvest too much info not only from how you use the appliance but they can access anything on your home network. Too bad you couldn’t send them a nasty malware or virus.
No benefit is incorrect. EFF determined that Toyota, Hyundai/Kia and many others have in their sales agreements the right to sell the data they receive from the people using their products.
Hyundai specifically mention sexual activity and fertility.
These companies are selling data created by customer events. They are doing this to create a new income stream. For them. Not for the users
Now if MyEnergi could hear that and implement a local API, I'd be thrilled.
Really sucks to see all this cool hardware crippled by a cloud dependency, we can only hope the EU will regulate on this in the future
Ah yes, damn you Streisand Effect, huh?
But yeah, I thought the exact same thing. Saying that this increased their AWS cost because the API makes AWS cost... for something that a user tried to make into a local function.
I hope this ends up being a lesson that other manufacturers learn something from.
Punishing smart, engaged customers. As another famous smart home youtuber says "Corporate Greeeeed"
It amazes me, one of the first things i do before buying a product is see what connectivity to home assistant a product has, if it ain't got it I aint buying it.
Haier probably wanted to make a Home Assistant integration themselves, found Andre's, got big mad that someone had beat them to it and was giving it away for the low low price of free.99
Haier can't make money off a subscription model for a Home Assistant integration if there is already one that is out there for free.
I love the free.99, but I wouldn't pay more than freefiddy.
Those examples are everywhere now. For example my Vaillant 200€ internet connected appliance was blocked by its serial number with the cloud account and now they are not answering any emails and etc.
That's why home-assistant and open-source will win.
I don't understand their logic.... By having a local only 3rd party HA addon, doesn't this reduce their costs and potentially boost sales (albeit to a relatively small, but growing community)?
Like, if I'm out to buy a new appliance now, and smart anything is mentioned, I will buy it if it has decent HA local support, snd probably give it a hard pass if it requires rhe manufacturer cloudy crap. Id rather a dumb dishwasher than one that tells china when my cups are clean.
1:48 "I hope to get an answer and until then I'll leave the repos online."
This guy gets an immediate C&D from a major company and says, "nah, I'll wait."
I don't buy products without local API. I've learned the lesson.
Thanks Lewis... As electrician and smart home integrator, you cannot imagine how many problems customers have from "closed" ecosystems. They get trapped. I think this issue needs to be regulated from goverments and force companies to open their API's for the benefit of the customers.
Oh, sure. Give the government more power. Whenever you have a government involved, this is the result...
pbs.twimg.com/media/CEStIX9WYAEdFKq.jpg
I appreciate that it sounds like the fictional tale - but I am someone who briefly looked at their appliances last week, thought the name was familiar and then walked away from them. First time home buyer who is moving in April - I'll be spending thousands on new appliances and will be checking how easily they integrate with HA, or at the very least not buy from anyone who rips away the functionality and employs threats like this
Update: By the end of the video I felt it worth while to reach out to them by email directly to let them know
Congrats on the new house and good luck on the search for new appliances
I hate companies that use the cloud to collect MY DATA from MY DEVICES, that I BOUGHT & PAID for, prevent me from accessing said devices locally bypassing their cloud charging mechanism to rip me off by charging to access my OWN data.
Kudos to Open Source for for reverse engineering the API, hope that goes one step further and reverse engineering all the device comms to redirect that data to a local Pi Hub.
If Haier is open to building their full IoT open platform and works with anyone who wants to integrate, then why wont they work with him? OR get with HA direct and BUILD A FULL SUPPORTED PLUGIN FOR HA! Then users dont have to use work around python libraries like the user here.
AWS fees can indeed be high. Here is a good solution for that ..... don't use AWS. Even if you have to use cloud for some reason, there are many smaller/local* companies offer those services for far lower fees compared to AWS.
I say smaller, but I mean compared to amazon. many of those cloud companies still turn around dozens if not hundreds of millions in revenue annually and offer high quality services, local support, etc etc.
This. You can rent a co-lo and spin up your own servers for a fraction of the cost and use Cloudflare in front for preventing DDoS. AWS has a specific use case and it's usually for things which need to scale up and down automatically. And you need to design your application in such a way you can do that
For HA if you have and use a local connection is like 0$ cost... The dumb users are happy with their propritary app, and the powerusers are happy with their integration in HA (this type of user also look for brand that works with HA! So in the long run rucurrent buyer and that use tell the comunity and that increase the selling to the detriment of other brands)
@ Well there is always the cost of electricity and the raspberry pi itself. Even at 5W, running a simple pi 24/7 is still 43 kWh annually.
But my argument was that the company itself listed AWS fees as an argument. A company doesn't run on local pi hardware, nor was the argument about the users perspective.
@@adanufgail I happen to run a fairly sizable mixed cloud/hardware setup for my work. There are good reasons to run stuff in the cloud, for us we have a multi DC requirement, but running hardware at colo sites is prohibitively expensive.
Right now we are running 150k+ a year on cloud infra and at this moment in time it's worth considering running more local hardware, but only because we are already running local hardware for other projects.
FYI, we are already running on an Openstack provider, so our costs are already at
@@patrickd9551 my 0$ is the cost for AWS for the company if they would use some local connection. The only cost is the programming of the local connection and after that if a user would like to use only the local connection doesn't use the the AWS service
Remember that local api that requires internet access is also not a solution.
This integration was using their servers, I completely disagree with their position on using the broken DMCA laws to take this down, however I always recommend using local integration, anything that hits someone else's server is bound to be broken at some point.
I must admit, it's not a big appliance but look how Sonoff has handled the issue with closed api's. They give an alternative. Will make it easy for you to flash our devices, but support the DIY approach.
Well it also looks like Monopoly using its Monopoly to try and bully a competitor out of the market particularly since they said they're going to produce a similar product.
Not so good appliances, bought 3 fridges, all failed in less than six months. Decided orher brands are better.
“Any press is good press” - first year marketing freshman. Stop buying Haier
Nice example where clearly legal hasn’t spoken with marketing 😂
I want EU law that all smart home products must have a local HA integration 😂
Yep, Haier won't be getting any money from me. All my equipment must have a local API and get cut off from the internet to prevent corporations from dropping a red-pill firmware update.
Use an isolated VLAN for your smart devices.
@@markarca6360 I do use vlans, one is isolated and one has heavily filtered access for things like weather data. But that doesn't change the fact that these companies act like they still own the product after we buy it.
I buy all my connected appliances with one major criteria only if they can be integrated in Home Assistant.
GE sold GE Appliances to Haier in about 2016, for those unaware.
So the all-new GE Profile heat-pump washer and dryer that was showcased in CES this year was a GE-rebranded Haier product?
@@markarca6360 GE still has their own product lines and aren’t necessarily just copies of Haier designs and I can’t say for sure about this one. I just know that I and many others that have worked with me at GE healthcare were not impressed with any GE appliance the had the job of cleaning things (laundry machines and dishwashers). That was over 5 years ago so maybe things have changed. Just my opinion.
It not just the smarthome issue. Hotpoint for example used to be a British brand, and had a fairly British way of supporting products. Now that they are American / Chinese, the service is typically aggressive American. You don’t actually call their support, you have to call a company that is actually trying to sell you an insurance product. They were very threatening and tried to scare my wife into buying a product even though our washing machine was well within warranty. Despite us getting large discounts on their products, we will never buy their brands again.
I herby promise to never buy a product from haier ever in my life. Open Source, such a healthy phenomena. Nobody, should stop something pure good!
This also happened to Toyota integration :(
Mazda did a DMCA takedown for the Mazda integration a couple of months ago too >:(
Don't buy Haier, it's a crappy Chinese brand
Why can't these companies just start making better integrations? Then they wouldn't have to cause all this drama or worry about open-source projects.
6:00 how would they sell your data if it was send locally? Thats just lost money for them
and that is exactly why i refuse to use anything that sends my data to the cloud.
It is possible to allow a local endpoint while still sending data outbound.
@@punksjutgbd and then it would be possible to block those outbound connections using a firewall.
I built myself an automated backup solution for my favorite repos that checks daily and pulls down updates to my local storage. You never know when one will disappear these days. Added this one to my list even though I don't use it personally.
They have shown their operating model, I now wouldn't trust them even if they released a local API, because how do they get that local API onto your device, and what's to stop them revoking that local API the same way? I remember TP-Link doing the same thing and they ended up having to rebrand.
I miss a clarifying video what has happened back then and meanwhile for all those of us new to the brand and wondering what the are doing or fighting back ?
I have found a few lines and a kind of summary on the github page but not in the HA forum .
we would call that a "castle peace" or "village peace" like it feels peacefull but can explode every second.
I think that there are a couple of reasons why companies don't offer local control as a standard
1. They want you to buy into only their ecosystem, hence why many companies offer their own hubs which are in many cases entirely redundant, since their products use well known communications standards. I'm thinking of the likes of Philips Hue and Zigbee, I know there are others that use Zigbee but still try to force you to buy their hub too...
2. Control. Through their proprietary interfaces, they have control of what you can and cannot do with their appliances. If that is devolved to local control, they lose out on things that they can potentially charge for down the line
The other thing I'll say is that the DCMA takedown process is ridiculously weighted in favour of the corporation over the little guy (but then I guess pretty much any legal procedure is automatically weighted in favour of the entity with the most money). There should be at least some burden of proof on the company to show that the HA integration is harmful to the equipment, or at least some cost analysis of what they think it's costing them, or something that is proof for whatever reason they're giving for the takedown. "But think of the shareholders!" should not be sufficient grounds for a takedown "request"...
In the reply email at 4:33 at the second bullet point they state that "opening our IOT infrastructure (we are aligned with Matter....". Shouldn't this indicate that some form of local API may be in the works? I think it is stupid what they did, and I'm sure they will not jump in full Matter immediately, but maybe all this bad press will give them a push to figure out the local Matter integration that everyone wants in the first place. If CES 2024 showed us anything, it's that companies are recognizing the communities desire for local control.
Maybe but if that were the case they should leave it alone until such time as the matter integration is ready, but also I would highly doubt that the Matter spec can cater to all the different devices types and functions as it is today and would probably result in a worse experience compared to the current API.
@@EverythingSmartHome Very true. Matter is a great idea as. I'm excited for what it means to the future of smart homes, but it is still in it's infancy and great devs like the ones they are trying to shoot down are who pave the way, providing us great solutions. I love the work you and the other smart home tubers do, and I'm glad you are helping hold big corporations accountable for their stupidity. Also can't wait to order one of your new lite sensors soon, absolutely amazing.
If there is a problem with API cost for companies, just give us LAN control over equipments without using the cloud => Problem solved. But they want control and they want a subscribe model for sure.
The fact they don't allow for local control just made my decision going forward as whether or not to buy their products.
Local API should be mandated for IoT devices. I've started snooping packets on my Flume, Eagle200 and other devices just in case they go out of business.
Haier sucks ass. Will not use them going forward
First I love the way you say Chamberlain. It sounds like you are saying ChamberLAME. I love it. Secondly, and more to the point of your message. If it is costing them move in AWS fees, yes, by all means make it local. But on the other hand, if it's a significant enough increase in cost, just think what it;s going to feel like when you alienate that entire group of customers. It's evidently a significant part of your income stream since it's impacting your profits so do you really want to piss them off.
How to lose customers 101
Thanks for exposing them, not buying from them or any of their other brands again if I can help it. Same goes to my friends and family of course. Thanks to Andre and the FOSS community! ❤️🙏
Been using HA for years. I love smart stuff but that being said, some stuff doesn't need to be smart at all. Been fixing stuff for years and I can maintain old white goods for ages. Recently had an older Bosch fridge die and it wasn't economically feasible to fix it. Smart appliance repair parts are expensive and a lot of places don't even provide you parts lists these days. I'm as much in the "Right To Repair" camp as I am the "Open Source" camp. All this being said I can't picture myself buying any Haier stuff after the way they handled this. Finding a manufacturer who provides an illustrated parts breakdown or service manual is increasingly difficult these days.
How are you able to keep straight face saying it was intended to be this way from the beginning, damn, you've got some real actor talent !
The funny thing is I was using this integration to fix the fact their machine smart functions don't actually work. The first machine would disconnect from wifi exactly 10 mins after the wash finished preventing me from spinning it when not home - 1yr no fix. The second doesn't remember the auto dose settings 1.5months no fix.
Like others one of the draw to their machines was the smart home integration.
Got a Haier washing machine recently (Unaware of this situation) and guess what, Their Own hOn app is not even working.... I can't launch washing programmes via the app and the support literallz said to wait for next version of the app that it MIGHT GET FIXED.... so Yeah ... Truly Amazing that they fight open source developers while their own solutions are not even working properly... If it wasn't out of return window I would send it back... absolutely gross from them do behave like this.
I have bought Haier appliances in the past. Won't need a Haier api in the future, because I won't buy another one!
EDIT: And the American company trying to do damage control is a waste of time at this point, WE CAN'T AFFORD THE RISK of dealing with this company.
For my heat pump I could have bought a serial2USB connection for $250 giving me access to (necessary!) additional data in a clumsy proprietary application :( Fortunately some clever dude reverse engineered the local API and created an ESP32 solution for it, turning the internal connector into a MQTT source for about $30 as I took the expensive way (m5stickC). Why don't they simply integrate this in the already available WiFi interface?
Thanks for being a BIG Cog in the wheel to help "us" moving forward. Your the "Man"! And major thanks to Andre' Basche for his time building the interface for HA.
I wish everyone would just follow Venstar's model. A simple UI with 2 options, turn off / on remote access for their bespoke paid for monitoring service. Turn off / on local API and just let the user decide. If you feel like tinkering and integrating to HA, go the local API route, and disable remote. Happy life. Are you someone that just wants to go the easy route, and don't mind paying for a monitoring service, activate the remote feature, login, and off you go. Why does it have to be EITHER/OR? One would argue that by allowing Local API you AVOID the AWS cost by giving those users a path that saves you all the bandwidth and API calls in the first place..
Local API only. If I want to use "cloud" I will use my home server from outside via VPN 😀
BTW, I block few hundred calls from corporate devices in my home network, I can only imagine how many dolars I have saved those companies while doing so 😅
BTW2 - is there any roomba like device that runs on local API?
It's actually ridiculous that they think reverse engineering how to use an API is going to impact their brand and revenue.... Security through obfuscation is not security at all.
Maybe they should think about how increased innovation around having an open API would lead to increased sales....
If they care about the number of AWS calls, document the API and optimize your back-end idiots.
This is a textbook Streisand effect scenario!
Has nobody at Haier heard of rate-limiting? It's not rocket science.
New commenter to your channel. You raised a good point about how appliances will last decades, yet, API calls don't. They change versions.
Personally, I wouldn't care. I don't need my appliances to "call home" anyways, unless that appliance shuts itself off permanently because it CAN'T call home. That'd royally piss me off, and probably end up in court over it.
Haier will NEVER in my lifetime get money from me for any product. There is no excuse for an attack like that. It's HAIERs choice that they won't allow local access to the product. THEY chose that is has to communicate through AWS, not the end users choise, and when you own a product it is yours. So out with Haier products!
I find the argument that their cloud now costs too much kinda laughable.
Haier: Hey, your devices should be cloud connected to be used.
Users: Ok, we'll use the cloud.
Haier: Oh, no. Err, could you use less cloud please? We didn't calculate this correctly.
The solution is the local API, as you mentioned. Or, maybe, reengineer their cloud API to be not sooo cost intensive. (I thought the dev of the pyhion mentioned lots of additional calls he seemed unnecessary )
So the integration makes too frequent API calls... they try to essentially smash it into the ground, but the result is over two thousand copies of the code which may not get the modification to lower the default update frequency, which I'm sure Mr Basche would have been happy to do if they'd just asked him nicely in the first place...
(Also, I wouldn't rule out a bunch of spiteful people now hammering the AWS endpoint in retribution.)
Haier aka Candy . Because integration I bought Candy washing machine ( Europe) . So , I have reason to avoid this (chinese) brand . Like many others ...
Obviously the best thing to do would be local control of the device, so it doesn't need the cloud at all. But a much simpler thing to do would be simply to document the API. If the HA integration is making excessive calls to the API, how should that be minimized? How should we authenticate? Etc.? Redoing the control system would be hard. Documenting the API should be easy.
Sounds like the Home Assistant community needs a more dedicated open hardware community so we can buy appliances and replace the “brains” ala ESP32, STM black pill, etc.
Other than the cost of the increased api calls the real loss is the decreased data they can mine and sell from using their app.
Almost none of these smart home devices need an internet connection. Except perhaps for firmware updates at user direction and some home security devices for owner (not brand/manufacturer/etc) controlled connections they define WITHOUT going through anyone but the end company the OWNER chooses. And no not from a select list that have 'licensed' the right or bought a decryption key, etc. If I want my smart doorbell or security camera to save video online somewhere, It'll be where I say encrypted with my choice of said via my pc if so desired and nothing goes back to the brand. Once they've sold it to me it's mine. They loose all right to say anything about how I use it. I can understand them keeping copyright to the software/firmware on the device until/unless I choose to replace it, and that's it.
So they complain about costs ... points finger on some open source developer because their traffic goes up ...
Instead of hiring a "non brain dead" engineers to optimize the infra ...
I usually do a cost analysis and POC before releasing the stuff to the "prod". To prevent this exact scenario ...
Looks like dumb architects / engineers who probably choose consumption based service and now they L the D
Openly obnoxious behaviour is becoming the norm from both Chinese individuals and companies. There must be new policies brewing within CCP. They appear to be taking brave pills.
I wanna build a house with smart home wired devices. Is there a low-mid cost technology for doing this (I don't want KNX and Luxone)?
Thank you very much!
Now it is the users fault they chose to use overpriced AWS to send all their API calls to. Local = free, AWS API calls = $$$. Never heard of the brand anyway. Corporate greed is why every company has their own app therefore expecting you to have a different app for every device. Piss on them.
I don’t like manufacturers cloud based operating systems to control my appliances. In actuality they have accesss to your whole home WiFi system and that opens your whole home system to scrutiny. If I go with that type of system I set up a whole other network that is separate from the network that the appliances are on. Two years ago we purchased a split heat pump manufactured by Inventor which I believe is a Greek company or European company. When I read through the terms of service to use the USB STICK that came with their AC unit for remote access through their system I noticed on paragraph in there that said "I am NOT allowed to criticize the government in any way form or fashion", WTF? I will criticize anyone I want and they can pound sand as my commanding officer says. Time to hackintosh their system.
I was happy to fork the repo. And I will reconsider when having to buy a Haier device.
To play angel’s advocate, when they first deployed their APIs, they probably didn’t plan or create API specifications for local API. It does take developer hours to create and some PM probably didn’t bother keeping in because it allowed them to meet their budget. That said, if they wanted to decrease costs, sending recommendations to the dev on saving API calls would have been cheaper than simply threatening them with legal action
Haier Obviously didn't calculate for such a massive backlash, even after the Chamberlain example. It will lose them significant sales. Chamberlain probably won't even feel the effect of my personal protest - I was building a large shed when they pulled their stunt. I was going to use their gear on two massive roller doors, but went with a competitor instead. It is money they will never see. Similarly, Haier will be blacklisted by me and, unlike Chamberlain, there is a lot more competition in the space that they trade and plenty of alternatives for consumers.
Guys, Haier is a chinese company. Stay away from it. For me it is quite simple: anything, literally anything I use for home automation is coming either from European factories or US factories. I simply avoid Chinese stuff. It may be good quality lately, but I simply don t trust electronic devices coming from there having access to anything in my home. I prefer paying a bit more and support or own companies or makers (yes, like this channel who sells some top notch sensors readily to use in your home). There is plenty of appliances available on the market that are not related to China.
Never heard of the brand but will def be avoiding in the future, thanks
I did, they are making like toptier washing machines or something, saw few ads on daily basics, but yeah, avoid it
Threaten your customers with legal action for simply using the stuff they bought as they wish? Yeah a real "Smart" company.
I'd like them to prove the "significant economic harm". But then they work on the basis that they've got highly paid lawyers and the customer doesnt so they dont have to actually prove anything.
But what they fail to realise is the very accurate saying: "The Geeks shall inherit the Earth"
Cloud based so data is collected by Haier. I need to buy a new clothes dryer and seeing that there are a number having WiFi. Why does the dryer need to have WiFi. Just another piece to break, pay extra for and spy on you. My last stove lasted just shy 4 years. Yes, thanks for making the API for those using that brand and for standing up to the bullies. So many companies are leaving a very bad taste in our mouths and we will not forget.
We need a Raspberry Pi open source local hub to such cloud companies. Raspberry to such companies
Kudos to Andre Basche
I think haier designed a product without thinking about home assistant when they designed the product and calculated the cost. It probably pulled the sensor data once a minute once the app is open. Now a HA community member designs it so that it every 10 seconds is pulling sensor data from the api 24/7 a day. If this product has a 20year life span like most airconditioning units it will result in aws bill that is higher than their sale price.
I think it’s selfish for a consumer to think you can tap into an api just because you purchased a product. The api still belongs to haier.
If you want to read your sensor data buy a product with a local api.
If you think these cloud based api’s do belong to you, just realise you are the one that is causing al these monthly subscriptions to pop-up with products you purchased.
Let’s try to puch manufacturers to local api’s instead of cloud subscriptions.
Yes, Someone has to pay that AWS bill.
This is why smart home and cloud does not mix well. Hopefully Matter/Thread will make things better in this regards....
My dishwasherhas not been working. If i cant fix it this weekend ill be buying another one...
Ive added another brand to my ban list. Lessbfoe this house, but the next one will demand all new appliances... All of them... Large and small... Inside and out...
Those brands wont get a sent of that economic impact.
With a local box doing DNS, iptables DNAT, etc, it should be possible to bring “the cloud” into the home in a way that doesn’t need HA or device hacks.
I came here because I am looking for a new tumble dryer, and a Haier one I saw looked good. So, because I want it to integrate with Home Assistant, I checked to see if there was an integration.
I guess I might not go Haier, but am open to other suggestions.
Is anywhere any list of shame contains these companies, to protect customers?
*insert local API, LG appliances sending 3 GB of traffic a day comment here*