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Haier hits Home Assistant plugin dev with takedown notice

cross-posted from: https://poptalk.scrubbles.tech/post/567593

Haier hits Home Assistant plugin dev with takedown notice

I'm not really big on "let's make a movement", but this independent dev has been hit with a cease-and-desist from making a FOSS Home Assistant addon for their Haier air conditioners.

Haier claims that they are losing out on millions of dollars due to this plugin which... lets you control their air conditions from home assistant. They haven't bothered to explain how that's possibly worth millions of dollars - they're just claiming it.

So of course they hit the Streisand button and are demanding that he takes it down. He of course is complying... in a couple of days. Maybe you see where this is going.

It would be an absolute shame if any of you just happened to create a fork, or clone the code, or mirror it in your own instance. An absolute shame.

Just so everyone here knows which repositories NOT to clone or fork, here are the two links:

and please, don't repost this anywhere, or share it in other communities, or anything like that. It's a shame that so many people already know and are making clones. I'm just letting you know so you don't do anything like telling others who may make their own copies.

(sidenote: Haier owns GE Appliance, so for our American folks it may affect you folks too)

Chewget ,

Why does that building look like a failed print?

FutileRecipe OP ,

I was gonna say air filter.

sxan ,
@sxan@midwest.social avatar

A royally abused heat pump.

vsis ,
@vsis@feddit.cl avatar

1.3K forks already lol

Please remember to fork it outside github. They will probably delete all forks based on intellectual property bs written in their TOS.

eager_eagle ,
@eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

My thoughts exactly. I still remember when the reversed engineered codes for the classic GTAs were out (RE3), all GitHub forks were quickly taken down.

bitwolf ,

Gittea, codeberg, Self-Hosted gog, src.ht.... have I missed any?

4grams ,
@4grams@awful.systems avatar

I’m m sure the “millions lost” is their theoretical earnings they are “losing” by not being able to monetize the data they collect, spy on users to determine their habits so that they can introduce features that charge for things that are standard today, loss of ad revenue, etc.

We’ve hit a point where since everything collects as much data as they can to be mined, anything that interrupts that stream is now a felony corruption of business model.

eager_eagle ,
@eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

it's like when they compute losses for pirated content, just assuming every download would be equivalent to a Golden Edition Purchase at the highest price charged in their history, when in reality they'd be lucky to convert 1% of those downloads into sales.

DmMacniel ,

Nobody has the intention to fork and clone opensource projects to keep them alive. :)

ThePantser ,
@ThePantser@lemmy.world avatar

Careful I hope this doesn't spark a war with them going after HA devs to block the use of the code in HA. I know there isn't much they can do to block it but I would hate the devs having to try to fight a lawsuit.

Contend6248 ,

It's unofficial and 3rd party, by that logic any OS could be sued.

ThePantser ,
@ThePantser@lemmy.world avatar

I am worried about frivolous suits ones just used to punish people that can't afford to fight.

Contend6248 ,

You're right, even if you could win, countless huge companies will steamroll you.

sxan ,
@sxan@midwest.social avatar

Naw, once they get their lawyer heads out of their asses, they'll go directlp to Github and have all of the forks removed.

BearOfaTime ,

Within 5 hours yesterday, the github repo was forked nearly 1000 times.

DmMacniel ,

yeah, it was glorious!

Damage ,

Too bad they own Hoover as well

hydrashok ,

Can’t wait for them to learn all about the Streisand Effect. I had been considering them for a new mini split system, but not anymore.

ThePantser ,
@ThePantser@lemmy.world avatar

I know they are not the best but I put in Mr cool and then ditched their dongle for one built with esphome. Now I have total local control and native Home Assistant control.

JustUseMint ,

The plug in has already received like a 1000 forks its awesome, to me that's Streisand effect. Hopefully people forked off github like someone else said. They may remove all IP stuff

thecookingsenpai ,
@thecookingsenpai@lemmy.world avatar

Woah I would never do it and would never tell you that I did it because I 100% didn't do it. The fact there are two new repos in my github is totally a coincidence.

Serinus ,

If you don't have a local copy you're likely to lose it.

Pantsofmagic ,

And I thought Chamberlain was bad for intentionally breaking MyQ integrations. This is downright absurd. I guess Haier can lose some more potential business.

subtext ,

I’m still so upset about Chamberlain disabling my smart garage with all that (I’m not about to use their damn app).

Thankfully the open source community have reverse engineered something but still, now I have to spend $40 because Chamberlain got butt hurt that people didn’t want to use their app.

https://github.com/PaulWieland/ratgdo

Pantsofmagic ,

I just installed a ratgdo as well because of this. It's great but shouldn't have been necessary for the reasons you state.

amju_wolf ,
@amju_wolf@pawb.social avatar

Good to know which company should be avoided for buying home appliances. I really hope the notice will be the first thing to show ope when you search their name + HA Integration.

themeatbridge ,

All the HVAC control systems are anti-opensource. They pretend like their proprietary controls are trade secrets worth billions in research and development, but ultimately they are all just glorified mercury switches. Honeywell, Johnson, Mitsubishi, Schneider, Trane, Siemens, none of them want to allow third party control without getting their beaks wet with licensing fees. Even their commercial departments have started phasing out support for protocols like BACNet and Modbus.

Temperature sensors are cheap as shit. Low voltage relays are cheap as shit. Even digitally controlled zone dampers shouldn't cost more than $100 installed. If you can access your ventilation in your attic or basement, you could zone every room in your house for less than it costs to replace a single AC compressor, and run it all on a raspberry pi.

But you need to know what you're doing, and they will throw every hurdle in your way. No contractors would risk drawing the ire of their suppliers by doing it for you.

BearOfaTime ,

Sounds like a market opportunity. Would be super disruptive

sxan ,
@sxan@midwest.social avatar

The Honeywell HomeAssistant integration works pretty well, and has been around for a while, but it works through a web API. I'd prefer to have a fully local connection, but I'm not going to replace the entire HVAC control system to get it.

DrWeevilJammer ,
@DrWeevilJammer@lemmy.ml avatar

Several Venstar thermostat models feature local API and work great with Home Assistant

FutileRecipe OP ,

Specifically, the plug-ins are using our services in an unauthorized manner, which is causing significant economic harm to our Company.

How does this cause them "significant economic harm?" My immediate thought is they are losing out on data or ads, hence it being a privacy concern.

navi ,

It could be poorly optimized or non-ideally programmatically poking their service.

But instead of working with devs or releasing a real API they did this shit.

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