Haier hits Home Assistant plugin dev with takedown notice

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.
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
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.
- They do, but only if you want to go through their servers for access outside of your network.
  
  I do it mostly to support the project.

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.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haier

I'm so sad about Fisher & Paykel. It was a local (New Zealand) manufacturer that prided itself on quality. It had such a great reputation for quality it eventually took that great quality internationally. And then capitalism and enshittification got its grubby hands on it and turned it into another trash brand. Yet another quality local company disappearing off overseas, screwing over local workers and trashing the quality in favour of profit.
- Enshittification exclusively defines online platforms. Stop using it for everything.
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

I bunch of people have forked the projects on GitHub and changed the README.

https://github.com/Andre0512/hon/network
https://github.com/thempc/hon/commit/f4169cce29fb5a5d669cad627fd6d66e681a5896
https://github.com/fbanwjdmzoasjdn/hoe/commit/70835712ec71086996d47a22b509629ab14c12dd
https://github.com/RearDoor/hon/commit/db2776b1ce3b86aa3ff1e63ebe34999e2df88800
https://github.com/EvilGremlin/hon/commit/263084b46829e00361a26b7cb186303e17128684
https://github.com/abc123me/hon/commit/b4186ad014d73566019cca3ba7422cb09cde5ec9
https://github.com/mon5termatt/hon/commit/5b40cf6947c95c1ea9b0c5b214be0520c32f829a
https://github.com/cathalferris/fuck_you_haier/commit/d896e02bb6d4b188192a7c60fb7e2f6b17c0a14c

The mistake is forking and hosting it on GitHub. If Haier sends GitHub a DMCA takedown notice, they will comply, and the forks will be deleted too. Use other hosting services for redundancy and keep a local copy.
- Might put it on torrents as well.
- I don't think there's a copyright component to this. DMCA isn't on the table
  
  Haier were implying that they might sue if the developer didn't take it down
Awesome! This is why I love the Lemmy community.

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.

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.

https://csa-iot.org/all-solutions/matter/
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.
- I love my single TRÅDFRI Zigbee lightbulb.
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.
Or, you know, just don't buy smart devices. They are pointless wastes of money and don't solve any problem but the imaginary problem their marketing made you think actually exists.

But they do create a whole lot of actual problems by having them in your home, and on your network.

Which is better than just supporting something that google, amazon, and apple have developed. Which makes it inherently suspect and suspicious, and anyone with a brain should have an intense primal need to avoid anything being pushed by those 3 individually.. much less working together as one.
- Matter, if implemented correctly, would save them all money and allow the privacy conscious to drop the cloud.
  
  They are losing money on their voice assistants, so they want out of the business of being the voice part of the central hub.
  
  They'll find ways to monetize the users who are less privacy concerned, but that's not me and I think it's not a lot of people who are here.
  
  Ediit: I didn't downvote you. I'm here for discourse and have found down votes don't help that.
- Username checks out...
- There are problems they can actually solve, mostly heating and power related:
  
  In summer, lower the blinds on south facing windows when the sun comes up to reduce solar heating, then raise them in the evening to increase air flow against the window panes. This reduces the need for air conditioning, resulting in a surprising amount of power saved.
  
  On a home solar system, start the washing machine, dishwasher, and dryer that were loaded in the morning when the batteries reach 80% charge. Allow them to run off the inverter rather than taking the charge/discharge losses involved in battery storage, reducing the size of both battery bank and solar array needed.
  
  Lower the freezer temperature when there is a power surplus, and raise it back to normal when not so that cooling energy is used when it's cheapest/most available
  
  If you don't work from home, you can't do the second two yourself. They require automation. Reducing baseload requirements and battery storage needs can make a transition to renewable power much cheaper and more efficient. With mass adoption, that extends to power grids and not just off-grid homes, and has significant effects on things like the amount of lithium that needs to be mined or the number of coal and LNG power plants that are needed for times that are off-peak for wind and solar generation.

So what do we do, all fork the repos and upload the source to archive.org?

Doesn't sound like a bad plan
- Two repos:
  
  https://github.com/Andre0512/hOn
  
  https://github.com/Andre0512/pyhOn
  
  Fork that shit. Upload the source anywhere you can think. Do crime.
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.
- Why would it be illegal? A cease and desist is just a fancy letter saying do what we want or else we'll go crying to a judge. If the original dev hasn't done anything wrong (I'm not familiar with the project but I'd still say that's highly likely to be the case) then there's nothing to worry about. So make all the clones you want, and watch a dumbass company Streisand itself
- I haven't seen any notice, sounds legal to me.
- It wouldn't be illegal if you hosted it in a country where there is no law against such a thing, and/or Haier does not have any presence which would grant them legal standing. Is anyone running a server farm in Sealand yet?

https://www.haierappliances.com/support/contact-us

Contacted :)

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.
- No opinion on Haier but I also like the design. I appreciate an architect who designs something outaide of the literal box.

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
- My heat pump has a timer setting. I can tell it when to start heating water or when to start AC. If your weekly schedule doesn't vary widely it should be enough. I have it set up to heat the water during the nigh and heat up my apartment a little bit right before I get out of bed. I never needed anything more.
The Lennox s30 integration works pretty great. It hits a local api hosted on the thermostat, and my thermostat is blocked from internet access.

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.

I was under the impression they were dead and gone for about 20 years.

The tv I had 20 years ago was garbage and I assumed they were just some shitty knockoff brand. Surprises me that they own GE.
- Last thing I had was a dishwasher by them a couple of years ago. Seals leaked about 6 months out of warranty and it cost about as much as a new one to replace them.

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

Anyone know how the plugin developer responded?

Would be dope if the response was 'Fuck you, prove it'

e. Well, the response was in the article, big disappointment "gotta take down the plugin".

It's haier's responsibility to prove damages

Would you risk going into massive legal debt for project you make no money from? Or would you continue to develop it for yourself and no longer post it publicly.
- Again, it's the pursuers responsibility to prove damages.
  
  Pro se and wait.
From the article a screenshot shows that the project is going to be discontinued with immediate effect

Just build a bomb and fight back fuck them