Dear Andre,
I'm Gianpiero Morbello, serving as the Head of IOT and Ecosystem at Haier Europe.
It's a pleasure to hear from you. We just received your email, and coincidentally, I was in the process of sending you a mail with a similar suggestion.
I want to emphasize Haier Europe's enthusiasm for supporting initiatives in the open world. Please note that our IOT vision revolves around a three-pillar strategy:
achieving 100% connectivity for our appliances,
opening our IOT infrastructure (we are aligned with Matter and extensively integrating third-party connections through APIs, and looking for any other opportunity it might be interesting),
and the third pillar involves enhancing consumer value through the integration of various appliances and services, as an example we are pretty active in the energy management opening our platform to solution which are coming from energy providers.
Our strategy's cornerstone is the IOT platform and the HON app, introduced on AWS in 2020 with a focus on Privacy and Security by Design principles. We're delighted that our HON connected appliances and solutions have been well-received so the number of connected active consumers is growing day after day, with high level of satisfaction proven by the high rates we receive in the App stores.
Prioritizing the efficiency of HON functions when making AWS calls has been crucial, particularly in light of the notable increase in active users mentioned above. This focus enables us to effectively control costs.
Recently, we've observed a substantial increase in AWS calls attributed to your plugin, prompting the communication you previously received as standard protocol for our company, but as mentioned earlier, we are committed to transparency and keenly interested in collaborating with you not only to optimize your plugin in alignment with our cost control objectives, but also to cooperate in better serving your community.
I propose scheduling a call involving our IOT Technology department to address the issue comprehensively and respond to any questions both parties may have.
Hope to hear back from you soon.
Best regards
Gianpiero Morbello
Head of Brand & IOT
Haier Europe
If only they would have reached out this way the first time instead of a cease and desist, their brand getting dragged through the mud could have been avoided.
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Well, how about having a local API and have no calls at all to your cloud infrastructure? Probably too easy and you cannot lock people into your ecosystem.
I’m glad the people with this device are getting traction on using it with their HA, but holy hell this is a complete non-starter for me and I cannot understand why they got it in the first place. There’s no climate automation I would ever want that is worth a spying device connected to the internet and a spying app installed on my phone.
Someone tell Gianpiero! You could save up to 20% on Amazon fees in just 5 minutes. Commit to a Local API today!
Probably more. Your app can use the local API then as well. And AWS is insanely expensive, especially if you forget to block log ingestion to Cloudwatch (ask me how I know).
From any practical standpoint, this makes so much sense.
Sometimes my Tesla fails to unlock for some reason and I have to disable my VPN and then stand next to it like a God damn idiot for 10 seconds while it calls it’s servers in fucking California to ask it to unlock my car.
I think it could definitely be possible to do locally, and I wouldn’t want a car where I have to connect to servers to connect to it. But I am also not sure I want a car that can be opened with a command on the car itself. The code to access your CAR being stored locally on the car itself, with no server side validation, does seem kinda scary. It’s one thing for someone to manage to get into your online login where you can change the password, it’s another for someone to literally be able to steal your car because they found a vulnerability. It being stored locally would mean people would reverse engineer it, they could potentially install a virus on your car to be able to gain access. Honestly, as a tech guy, I don’t trust computers enough to have it control my car.
It already unlocks locally over Bluetooth.
The issue you are experiencing likely has nothing to do with the VPN. Network connectivity is not needed to unlock the car. I have been in places with no cell phone signal and it still works.
I do sometimes experience the same issue you are. If I wake up my phone, then it works. So it may be working for you not because you disabled the VPN, but because you woke up your phone and it then sent out the bluetooth signal to let the car know you were nearby.
When I have the VPN on I get nothing but a “Session Expired” notice for several months at a time.
It’s a bit of both! Certain commands to the car can be done locally via Bluetooth OR via Tesla servers. The tricky bit is that status always comes from the server. If you are on a VPN that is blocked (like I use NordVPN and it is often blocked) then the app can’t get status and as long as it can’t get status it may not even try a local command. It’s unclear to me under what circumstances it does local vs cloud commands, and it may have to do with a Bluetooth LE connection that you can’t really control.
When you don’t have service, or you’re on VPN, it may be worthwhile to try disabling and reenabling Bluetooth. I have had success with this before. If you’re using android, it seems like the widget also uses Bluetooth, so you could try adding the widget to your home screen and using that. You can also try setting the Tesla app to not be power controlled, so it never gets closed.
Either way, there’s a definite engineering problem here that feels like it should be fixed by Tesla. But I can at least confirm that, even in situations with zero connectivity, you should be able to perform basic commands like unlock and open trunk without data service.
As if I needed yet another reason to never ever own a Tesla.
My car has this crazy technology in it: You can stick the key in the door and twist and it’ll unlock. Even if the network is down or the battery is dead. Arcane, right?
I will be driving my 03 1.8t 5mt Jetta into the ground, thank you very much.
Can’t you just put the key in? Do they even have physical keys?
They come with NFC keys but you can also put has a wireless key fob, if that’s your preference.
The physical key is a smart card. The size of a credit card
If it’s implemented correctly, a smart card or phone unlock does not need internet connectivity to work.
The smart card or phone don’t. The app does.
Not that simple. You don’t need internet connectivity for auto unlock with the phone. Only manual unlock.
Thats what I said. I’ve had a Tesla for years. Only the app requires the internet
Yep people should only purchase things that don’t require the cloud. Local control is the best.
I’m glad the threat of being on a FOSS Hall of Shame is effective for some companies, and that they can’t just frivolous lawsuit away a hobby developer without consequences to their bottom line, which would have set a bad precedent against small-time FOSS developers everywhere.
Now their status to me is moved from “Shitlist” to “Shitlist Pending”, they’ve talked their talk so now it’s time to see them walk their walk. Best would be to allow users to control their Haier products from their own servers rather than Haier’s. That will reduce their cloud computing bills from 3rd party users but they can still offer “compelling value” in their walled garden ecosystem as a simple one-and-done setup. Win-win right?
Happy to see them backtrack. I didn’t think the backlash would be large enough. Let’s see if they follow through on the backtrack though
The spacing in the email screwed up the formatting:
Dear Andre,
I’m Gianpiero Morbello, serving as the Head of IOT and Ecosystem at Haier Europe.
It’s a pleasure to hear from you. We just received your email, and coincidentally, I was in the process of sending you a mail with a similar suggestion.
I want to emphasize Haier Europe’s enthusiasm for supporting initiatives in the open world. Please note that our IOT vision revolves around a three-pillar strategy:
- achieving 100% connectivity for our appliances,
- opening our IOT infrastructure (we are aligned with Matter and extensively integrating third-party connections through APIs, and looking for any other opportunity it might be interesting),
- and the third pillar involves enhancing consumer value through the integration of various appliances and services, as an example we are pretty active in the energy management opening our platform to solution which are coming from energy providers.
Our strategy’s cornerstone is the IOT platform and the HON app, introduced on AWS in 2020 with a focus on Privacy and Security by Design principles. We’re delighted that our HON connected appliances and solutions have been well-received so the number of connected active consumers is growing day after day, with high level of satisfaction proven by the high rates we receive in the App stores.
Prioritizing the efficiency of HON functions when making AWS calls has been crucial, particularly in light of the notable increase in active users mentioned above. This focus enables us to effectively control costs.
Recently, we’ve observed a substantial increase in AWS calls attributed to your plugin, prompting the communication you previously received as standard protocol for our company, but as mentioned earlier, we are committed to transparency and keenly interested in collaborating with you not only to optimize your plugin in alignment with our cost control objectives, but also to cooperate in better serving your community.
I propose scheduling a call involving our IOT Technology department to address the issue comprehensively and respond to any questions both parties may have.
Hope to hear back from you soon.
Best regards
Gianpiero Morbello Head of Brand & IOT Haier Europe
Thanks, on my phone and can’t edit it well right now
Recently, we’ve observed a substantial increase in AWS calls attributed to your plugin, prompting the communication you previously received as standard protocol for our company, but as mentioned earlier, we are committed to transparency and keenly interested in collaborating with you not only to optimize your plugin in alignment with our cost control objectives,
i get it; their amazon account gets hit hard by some plugin data stream, they trace the source and kill it for monetary reasons. makes total sense. handled terrible, but still, i also completely understand getting some giant bill from amazon and freaking the fuck out.
“We don’t know how to rate limit our API or set billing alarms in the AWS console.”
They likely due. However overhead cost is overhead cost
Sounds the solution is to allow users to not have to connect to the server in the first place and communicate across a local network.
Because they’ve probably killed more money from loss of sales through this stunt than they have from AWS fees.
I highly doubt it. Lemmy isn’t representative of the general population, and the general population has no idea what Home Assistant is.
This news wasn’t limited to Lemmy, you know.
The general population is very much influenced by the Home Assistant community since the Home Assistant Community is made up of people who are heavily into technology. My parents will run purchases in the tech world past me, as will many of my work colleagues and friends.
The general population are very interested in what we do, even if they do not do it themselves. I mentioned to a tech-phobic friend that I have sensors in my bath that notify me when my bath is run and he takes the piss out of me to my face then talks about how amazing such a thing is behind my back, I know because it happened yesterday. Who do you think he’s gonna talk to when he buys his next expensive appliance?
Don’t talk our influence down, we have an influence even if you can’t see it.
You’re showing your bias as someone who’s knowledgeable about technology. It’s not uncommon for people with an interest in something to assume that knowledge or interest is universal. It’s not.
The average consumer has absolutely no idea how technology works, and they have no interest in knowing. They’ll just buy off the shelf garbage because brand name and nothing else.
I mean, why does HP’s printer division still exist if “everyone” knows they’re a shitty company that will brick your printer if you use 3rd party cartridges? Why do people buy Tuya devices even though they’re essentially Chinese government spying devices?
It’s because “everyone” doesn’t know. And they don’t care.
But you have to remember, that’s true for lost sales but it’s also true for API calls - only a small fraction of their user base is contributing to this high API usage
Right, but I highly doubt the back tracking is because of potential lost sales. It sounds more like the financial people got the legal people involved and they sent a C&D without asking the tech people for a solution. Now the tech guys are doing damage control for the idiots.
I’ve been that tech guy, and I know the general population either has no idea about this occurrence, or they forgot as soon as they scrolled past.
Yup exactly. They just need better responses than “get legal on the phone”
Did you not read the letter you posted? It said a call with the IoT department.
Did you not read the linked issue? The first thing they did, before this letter, was sending a cease and desist
I misread the comment, for sure. I thought they were talking about the call the letter referenced.
Honestly they should find away to make it work with HA instead of the companies servers.
Yep.
Fuck Haier, espscially at this point.
Had they tried working with him furst, they’d have a little moral ground to stand on.
Now the lives are off. How many forks are there if his git repo now? It was a thousand yesterday.
I don’t know about you but I want the companies to take self hosted and Foss solutions seriously. The fact that they are wanting to work with him is a major step in the right direction. It would be dumb to discourage companies from supporting foss.
Are they supporting FOSS, or looking to buy out the project to make it a closed in-house solution and avoid the bad publicity they created this last week?
Well I think the worst thing that could happen is we just fork it and go on with our lives.
Why would they want a new in house solution? They already have one but home assistant probably is going to be easier for them.
Not really self hosted. Uses their online service to pull it into Home Assistant.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters HA Home Assistant automation software ~ High Availability IoT Internet of Things for device controllers VPN Virtual Private Network
3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 14 acronyms.
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