Haier, the air conditioner maker, takes down open source third-party Home Assistant integration

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

We're discussing this over in !homeassistant@lemmy.world. This absolutely has to be about them losing access to data they can sell to 3rd parties. The hOn ToS will no doubt have a clause that enables this.

It's a dick move for sure.

“Significant economic harm”

Yeah, like my never considering you for any products ever again you pieces of trash. Why the fuck do your products even need to connect with the cloud?

Fuck off.

Special shout-out to LiftMaster/Chamberlain who did the same rug-pull on their customers last year.

Never trust free cloud services attached to a paid product.

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

Looks like the owner isnt taking it down and will force them to take it down.

I'm curious what the legal reason is for this. They arent actually using any illegal IP right?

Not to excuse this sort of behaviour, but at least they're honest enough to say it's about the money, instead of hiding behind excuses like "bUt sEcuRiTy vUlNeRaBiLiTieS".

We need laws to prevent this kind of anti-consumer bullshit (yeah I know, a pipe dream) and for people to simply not give Haier their money, or data.

One thing I find annoying is that there's no way for me to let the company know that this behavior lost me as their customer forever unless they change their tune.

I'm fairly sure I'm the kind of person they'd market those products towards and it hurs them, but there's no wat that I'm aware of to let them know.

If there was a way, and a significant amount of people would do so, maybe the decision makers would understand it's stupid...

At this point I need a website that tracks companies BS and gives them a grade level. Just too effing many of them.

Bullshit from companies continues... someone don't forget to upload all code to the Internet Archive just in case.

Isn't the whole point of this to not use their services? As long as Haier's software and servers are not being touched I don't see how they have any legal standing. This guy should speak to a lawyer to verify if this is the case.

Anyhow, the last Haier/GE air conditioner I took apart had a commodity off-the-shelf USB Wi-Fi dongle inside it plugged in via a short USB extension lead to an off-the-shelf microcontroller board to enable its "smart" features. I'll bet you a dime Haier is violating the terms of at least one open source license, possibly more than one, via the software stack they're running in there. So as far as I'm concerned they're free to take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.

Badwill. Always a bad strategy. Join progress, don't fight it.

are in violation of our terms and agreements

So what if you dont agree with their terms? What then? Cant you just host the repo and tell them to fuck off since you sisnt agree to anything?

I don't have any Haier products but as a Chamberlain/MyQ garage door owner I can relate all too well. At least ratgdo is an option for the garage doors, I doubt there's anything nearly as simple for the Haier users.

Fuck these companies.

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

I assume they have their own app and run ads/user analytics through it that make them money.

I have to wonder if you bought their products on the basis that they worked with HA, if you could have some sort of claim here.

As if I needed another reason not to buy their shitty appliances.

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.

reminds me of the DMCA form letters. full of scary empty threats. paid legal dept. earning their keep. mgmt doesn't realize the freely developed stuff makes their products more desirable when it does a better job than their own software. may they flounder in ignorance

MY ECONOMIC HARM!

I live in caveman times. I turn my lights on with a light switch, and I turn my AC on with the power button on the unit.

So, is the code in question using a publicly accessible API of theirs? If so it'd be a shame if something were to access that API more than anticipated..

I laughed when I saw "significant economic harm"

Boycott Haier

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It would be even better if they just stopped putting microphones and cameras on thermostats and stopped making them with internet connectivity.

Hey, also, just btw, as an aside, apropos...

If you use "smart devices" in your home, you're a fucking moron.