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: !homeassistant@lemmy.world
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!
“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.
Why? Their response showed why: so they can sell your data. There’s literally no other reason. And they can’t just sell a product for profit, that’s not enough, they have to also sell out our privacy for more revenue! Otherwise they would have stayed quiet, maintaining plausible deniability and not taken this step. It’s literally never enough for these scumbag companies…
Oh yeah, I mean my question was pretty much rhetorical, selling my useage data isn’t a good reason for this to happen.
Still, I’m glad you responded so anyone who wasn’t already familiar can get the perspective.
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.
Fuck these guys for real. I had just set up a raspberry pi and nfc tags. I’m not buying their shitty ecosystem even harder now.
I ripped mine out as soon as they pulled this. Fuck them, they won’t get my data if they won’t let me do what I want with a product I already paid for.
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?
They just don’t want to go through the hassle of securing their api, so they’re trying to strong arm the devs into dropping the project.
It would be laughably easy for them to kill this, but maybe their devs aren’t competent enough to do it.
This seems like the answer. If there is no proprietary code and they did not actually reverse-engineer patented technology, I doubt they have a leg to stand on.
It costs nothing to threaten to sue, and it sometimes works.
afaik reverse engineering is generally legal so long as the person prosecuting you can’t prove you used insider knowledge
This is why things like game system emulators are generally fine
Reverse engineering is legal, but if you still arrive at a solution covered by a patent, then that solution is illegal. But this shouldn’t be covered by a patent.
That seems like it would be nearly impossible to prove with software. There are so many ways to structure solutions and most of them conform to an open standard
It’s an open source project repository. It can be compared to the process descriptions in the patent. But patents and copyright don’t cover APIs, as decided in Oracle vs Google in 2021.
I’m saying this usage of reverse engineering is probably safe, but if you reverse engineered a way to process data that happened to match a patent, it doesn’t matter that you never saw the patent or original code, it can still be infringement.
It would still require a lot of time and hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawyers.
It wouldn’t require that much time or money to lock down the API. It’s not something they’d have to create from scratch.
Although I’m sure the entire platform is a mess of spaghetti code, so maybe it would be expensive to have someone untangle it enough to implement.
APIs are, by nature, open. Anyone can use them. The business bros don’t like this fact and are using lawyers to express their distaste for people using their product as intended.
At this point I need a website that tracks companies BS and gives them a grade level. Just too effing many of them.
Hmmm… Like the BBB but better? The better BBB? BBBB perhaps… Or B^4…
BBB is run by businesses, for businesses.
Not a consumer protection agency.
This was always the funniest thing when I worked product support. Folks would threaten to go to the BBB and we’d just mute to laugh
They didn’t just pit us against each other through populist politics, they also hired us to fight one another.
It’s pretty impressive in its darkness.
Bruh, it’s screeching Karen’s wasting everyone’s time trying to get something for nothing when they’re already in the wrong. Let’s bring it back to the real world, here.
I always used what flexibility was available to me to try to do right for our customers, but we had a shocking amount of people literally trying to commit insurance fraud among other things.
Listen, I get where you’re coming from don’t get me wrong, what I meant was, back in the 80’s, if you had a complaint, you had a number to an office, and the person answering was responsible for the content of the conversation, you know?
Now, as I see it, we’ve been kind of outsourced to take each others shit without having any real power. I don’t know maybe that’s trite, like obvious, you call a support center and get connected to India, know what I mean? They just offloaded their responsibility on the consumer, of which the employees most certainly are- we’re all just consumers in the end. My 5c, also, apologies for any gangster lingo, I’m fuck white, I’ve just been watching a LOT of YouTube videos.
BCFC - By Consumers for Consumers
Just a quick reminder to anybody reading this:
The BBB is not a government institution. It is nothing but a for-profit company
Its almost a poorly made extortion racket: if you are a business that does not pay the bbb to get a good rating they rate you badly till you do. But either way they can’t actually do anything about shitty companies, its all the illusion of having recourse for the consumer when there is none.
Hmmm… Like the BBB but better?
No, I mean like just a static page that lists every company and with a grade to the right of their names, and you click on a company name to drill down to comments about them and their grade. A quick lookup reference that someone can use before purchasing a product.
Basically like how they have websites for movies, but for companies instead.
The BBB doesn’t have such a thing AFAIK, it’s just a place for reporting companies at an individual complaint level.
What do you call supersized legos all painted black?
Big black blocks.
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…
That’s actually the one thing that Twitter is still good for.
It was the only thing I ever used Twitter for. Then it stopped working as I think a lot of companies stopped caring. Then Musk came along and I closed my account.
Make a project of getting escalated up to an executive through a chain of emails. LinkedIn provides a good starting point with contact information.
A while ago, I expressed my desire to tell a Microsoft executive to fuck themselves over a decision that frustrated me and that idea proved fruitful. (Thanks lemmy) Just stay professional until you earn your prize and, at worst, you’ll waste some of their money as your potential entry point wastes time reading your entirely unrelated message. Change emails if you care to cover your tracks.
You can contact them https://www.haierappliances.com/support/contact-us
Sadly, those who care about ethics is a small number. See Reddit as a good example. You and I go “this company sucks, I’ll spend my money elsewhere.” Most people go “ooh, monkey like shiny” and that’s the end of it.
Bullshit from companies continues… someone don’t forget to upload all code to the Internet Archive just in case.
It’s pretty easy. Download the repo from GitHub as a .zip and upload that to the archive. Pretty simple. Don’t forget to do this for both repos.
Indeed it is, I just can’t do it right now
Also fork the repos. Git makes duplicating a repository simple, and preserving history with a fork is way better than uploading a zip snapshot. For best results fork to GitLab, Bitbucket, Codeberg, etc. as well.
Forking yeah, but not by clicking the Fork button on Github. When a repo get DMCA its forks get deleted too…
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.
The problem is it’s a script that logs onto Haier’s servers with the user’s email and password and starts polling for data. Considering that most designed usage is probably based around users every once in a while checking and adjusting their thermostat, just one user with an HACS install doing a poll every minute is 1440x more usage than the next who checks it once a day. If HACS uses were the majority of traffic for these devices I wouldn’t be surprised by that metric.
That’s what probably meant by the ToS because the users using it are probably violating it, and the addon can be considered as something that makes violating it easier (it doesn’t have a secondary purpose other than using a set of credentials that are only given after accepting the ToS).
I’ve had crappy “Smart” ACs and Samsung was the absolute worst. At random times their AWS instance in Europe would go down or their app wouldn’t respond. I gave up and coded my own script to directly interface with the device over the local WiFi. You cut Samsung completely out of the equation. You don’t have to worry about their servers not working anymore. That’s an ideal way for an add-on to work. Ideally most of the script can be retuned to work directly with the device.
Any appliance made by Samsung is pure garbage. I just got rid of one of their dryers and I’m very glad to have it gone.
What kind of trouble did you have with the dryer?
All the parts they used internally are made to be as cheap as possible. The rollers that support the drum, and the belt tensioner, use low quality bushings that wear out prematurely. The extra fiction the parts caused would cause the belt to fail too. I’d have to tear the entire thing apart every two years or so and replace these parts to keep it running, far more often than I’d have to repair any other dryer brand. The sensor dry cycle on it never properly dried the clothes, and the steam function on it didn’t work very well either.
A friend of mine has a Samsung dryer, washer, fridge, dishwasher, and microwave. He hates all of them with a passion for similar reasons.
I don’t hate everything Samsung as I’m quite happy with their tablets and watches, but I’d never purchase another one of their appliances.
My drier squeaks a lot, it seems like the previous owner has replaced the wheel once, and I replaced the wheel again, and it still squeaks…
Seems like the customer would be violating the TnC, not the repo owner
I said that?
Generally, a lot of companies that add “cloud enabled” to their products don’t let you access the local device. Home Assistant isn’t talking to the air conditioner, it’s logging into their web interface. If it’s polling 1/minute, that can be a lot of extra traffic, compared to a normal user.
The better solution is to work with their buyers, not against them. If they provided a local API, then the excess traffic would go away. Theirs no money in that, in the short term, however. So they take the lazy route.
There’s a reason I only buy IoT type devices with a local API. They also have a tendency to turn servers off. Suddenly your smart device is bricked, despite working fine.
I’m curious about the details, yeah. Maybe they’re plugging into some API or something? Breaking some safety measure? Otherwise I really don’t see how these threats aren’t empty. Suing somebody for breaking EULA terms does not have a great track record, and neither does modifying things you buy or making unauthorized software for computers.
But hey, if the guy says the project is coming down, then I guess the aggressive language did the thing they wanted it to do, even if it’s relatively toothless.
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?
Did OP even agree to their terms?
Right… a violation of our TnC… doesn’t matter. Maybe for the customer, not the repo owner.
Badwill. Always a bad strategy. Join progress, don’t fight it.
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.
Isn’t GitHub Microsoft owned now? Or am I missing something?
It is owned by Microsoft.
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.
No, thankfully I don’t use any of their products. But I find their statement ridiculous. If I buy something, it’s mine, I own it because I paid for it. The manufacturer can fuck off.
If you dig just below the surface, you will find that the very philosophical concept of “ownership” comes with terms and conditions.
But they want you to use their app.
And they’ve decided if you have a HA plugin, you won’t.
So we do our research, and avoid scumbag companies when making purchasing decisions, or more likely, pick the lesser of a several evils.
So we do our research, and avoid scumbag companies when making purchasing decisions, or more likely, pick the lesser of a several evils.
That’s why I created this post. To inform people about Haier’s shitty and customer-hostile solely profit-oriented business practices.
Hell’s Angels? Because it feels like everything works with Hell’s Angels now.
As if I needed another reason not to buy their shitty appliances.
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!
