In the segment smart homeone of the most appreciated tools worldwide for creating automations and making devices communicate that, normally, could not communicate is certainly Home Assistant. Home Assistant is an open source software platform designed for the management and automation of home automation devices and services. Its main function is to act as a central hubenabling the integration and control of a wide range of devices and protocols.
Anyone who uses Home Assistant can set up a smart home offline or make sure that i smart devices can exchange information in localeno longer relying on the cloud and therefore freeing themselves from the ecosystems of their respective manufacturers.
Home Assistant offers an intuitive user interface, support for advanced automation and a wide range of pluginwhich allow the expansion of the platform’s functionality.
What are Home Assistant plugins or integrations
Home Assistant plugins, also called integrations o components, play a fundamental role in making the platform powerful and flexible. These additional software are like pieces of a puzzle that allow the system to communicate with devices and services from different manufacturers, following the most disparate standards.
When a specific smart device is not directly supported by Home Assistant, the first thing to do is to look at the plugins: individual developers and the entire community tend to ensure support for all the products that can be found on the market today.
Haier orders recall of Home Assistant plugin, threatening legal retaliation
Haier is a multinational home appliance and consumer electronics company that sells a wide range of products under the brands General Electric Appliances, Hotpoint, Hoover, Fisher & Paykel e Candy. Like other manufacturers, Haier also has a whole series of smart products in its catalogue: the dedicated application hOn allows you to access the connected features of all these devices.
Via the app you can activate the remote controlthe reception of notifications in real time from household appliances, manage the oven, washing machine, dryer, refrigerator, air conditioners, wine cellar and more through a single digital space and the same interface. The Haier application and devices integrate with Alexa e Google Home“speaking” also through the connected speakers.
The German developer Andre Basche, who created plugins to enable thehOn app integration in Home Assistant, announced that it had received a warning from Haier. The legal department of the company’s European branch accuses Basche of developing two integrations for Home Assistant. “Specifically, plugins use our services in an unauthorized way, causing a economic damage significant to our company“, we read in the communication that Haier sent to the developer. “We take protecting our own very seriously intellectual property and we demand that you immediately cease and desist from all illegal activities related to the development and distribution of these plug-ins“.
The text of the warning, as published by Andre Basche, author of the contested plugins.
Intellectual property violated?
The plugins created by the German programmer are open source (the source is published on repository corresponding GitHub) but it is not clear which portions of the code violate Haier’s intellectual property. In the warning shared by the programmer there is in fact no specific reference to the application code.
In any case, the threat of a legal dispute has led Basche to throw in the towel: on GitHub he confirms that he will close both repository indicated by Haier’s legal department, within a few days.
In the meantime, protests have begun to mount: several observers consider Haier’s approach excessively aggressive and speak of a missed opportunity to enhance its products. On the other hand, the plugins in question – after the news of the action taken by the Chinese company – were subjected to fork over 230 times. This means that just as many individuals have used Basche’s work to initiate derivative projects. Partly out of provocation, partly so as not to definitively lose what has been achieved.