| I run a similar API program for an IoT Manufacturer. Our API is public. I have a lot of thoughts about this. Supporting things like this is a mixed bag IMO. This group (especially Home Assistant) are very technical, hands on, and engaged. I'm a one man team (soon to be two). Between the "big guys" Alexa, Google, SmartThings, HomeKit, Paying Customers (RMR) it's hard to dedicate time to support what in my world are enthusiast projects outside of simply providing the API developer portal. On the other side, it's really fun to work with these groups. I just usually run out of time. The dark side of these integrations is they can be really badly implemented, and possibly misused. I've had to make pull requests to more than one "scraped" API integration because it was sending tons of bad traffic and/or creating unintended results for end-users. It is mostly a manpower problem to police, and in extreme cases like a garage door being left open/not closing becomes a liability (no matter what your API agreement says). That being said, our public API has been a net good. We've promoted some real quality partnerships off organic visitors to the website (or my linkedin). |
But that isn't really their reason. They don't allow IFTT to open the door. Alexa and Google Assistant support is extremely limited.
They've focused on partnerships that directly produce revenue. It is purely a cash grab.