[Rooster61]

First, thank you. Home Assistant is an outstanding example of having control of our electronics rather than giving money to data harvesting companies.

Second, I'm curious, how often do you guys have to deal with negative actions taken towards you by those same data harvesting giants? I'd imagine they aren't huge fans of this technology. Any Cease and Desist or other fun examples you guys have had to defend yourselves from?

[balloob]

We have very good relationships across the industry, especially the bigger companies. I literally just came back from a meeting with Google Home :)

Where we see the most pushback is from industries adjacent to the smart home, as they don't appreciate the openness. Think garage doors, cars, or cloud data providers for info that can be useful in the home.

When someone complains, like Mazda [1], we pull their integration and communicate their stance to our shared users, and people considering buying into their products. We don't fight for access, as a manufacturer with a cloud service will always be able to find a way. If it is a local device though, our community tends to find a way[2]

[1]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/10/mazdas-dmca-takedown-ki... [2]: https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2023/11/06/removal-of-myq...

[adamtaylor_13]

It’s interesting how some of these actions backfire. I will literally never purchase a chamberlain product ever again because of how overtly money-grabbing they are.

I suppose in some ways, it’s a good thing. It shows me what companies I should support, and which I shouldn’t.

[esperent]

> It shows me what companies I should support, and which I shouldn’t.

I used to think that way too. Now, I think that all it takes is one bad quarterly report leading to a new CEO, and even the most open of companies can instantly switch to being closed, lock off all their APIs, stop working with open source projects like HA.

I don't know any solution to this, and if I'm honest, being bitten a couple of times has stopped me from experimenting with anything like home automation that requires me to buy physical hardware.

[ncallaway]

I think a big part is buying things that work locally and don’t require a cloud connection at all.

If it requires a cloud to function, you’re at the mercy of a company changing attitudes. If it runs entirely locally, the company can’t get in the way even if they want to.

It’s one of the aspects I really like about matter (or any other device that operates on a purely local protocol). If Inovelli decides to take a turn, it just means I won’t buy any new products from them, but the switches I already put in my wall will continue to function the way they do today.

[nucleardog]

Don't buy things that need a cloud integration and it's not really a risk.

Even if you don't use Home Assistant, their site is really good for helping with this--every integration lists a "class" like "Local Polling" or "Cloud Push".

Another shortcut is picking up a Zwave/Zigbee dongle (~$30 when I got mine) and buying products that work with that. If the only radio in the device is one that can pair to a local controller, it's a relatively easy way to ensure it's meant to work locally without a cloud integration. (If Kwikset has a bad quarter I'll never know--my door lock only communicates as far as my utility room.)

Besides "the company can't screw me over", if everything is running locally it also immediately limits the privacy and security implications. And ensures your house doesn't break if the internet goes out.