Equipment producer Haier has been integrating IoT options into their newer merchandise, and as is so widespread today, customers are anticipated to put in their “hOn” cellular utility to entry them. Not happy with that limitation, [Andre Basche] reverse engineered the protocol utilized by the app, and launched a Python library and related Home Assistant plugin to interface with a wide selection of Haier home equipment, which incorporates manufacturers like Hoover, Sweet, GE Home equipment and others.
Sadly, it appears to be like like his efforts have gotten him right into a little bit of authorized sizzling water. In a difficulty lately opened on the venture’s GitHub web page, [Andre] explains the circumstances and authorized choices which have led him to contemplate pulling the repositories fully — principally as a result of the price of mounting a authorized protection to the stop & desist from Haier Europe.
What’s ironic right here is that Haier has been a part of the Connectivity Commonplace Alliance (CSA) since 2022, whose objective is to ‘promote common open IoT requirements’, together with Matter.
It’s attainable {that a} authorized protection shall be mounted towards this C&D from Haier throughout the coming days. But whatever the final result right here, it stays problematic that these IoT-enabled Haier home equipment are linked to the Haier servers. Ideally they’d be managed domestically, which is the objective of initiatives like [Miguel Ángel López Vicente]’s ESP Haier, that makes use of an ESP8266 to attach Haier AC models to the native WiFi and e.g. HA cases, all with out requiring web entry.
That is sadly only one extra instance of why constructing your personal off-line smart home could be such an unimaginable wrestle.
Because of [Ar3itrary] for the tip.