Appliances giant Haier reportedly issued a takedown notice to a software developer for creating Home Assistant integration plugins for the company's home appliances and releasing them on GitHub.

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)

  • A1kmmAEnglish
    6·
    10 months ago

    I’d suggest not buying anything from Haier. I had a fridge from them, and it barely lasted 5 years. I used their official service programme to try and get it fixed (so as to try to get it sorted without them blaming the fridge, and the manufacturer blaming the repairs), and even the person they sent out (who didn’t exclusively work for Haier but was part of their repair programme), recommended getting another fridge, and making the next one a brand other than Haier.

    The fact that they are now claiming that letting consumers control their own appliances harms the company just shows how out of touch they are with what their consumers want - and definitely reaffirms to me that this is not a brand worth buying.