5 ms·

The problem is that these require some kind of server. Get one that just talks to HA over your local network. Why in the hell does a garage door opener need a

by api 3y ago

The problem is that these require some kind of server. Get one that just talks to HA over your local network. Why in the hell does a garage door opener need a server? Oh, data collection. And subscriptions. Nothing for the user. I avoid any home automation thing that has any cloud backing that's not strictly optional. It's a strong anti-feature. In home stuff cloud means it won't work when the Internet is down, it spies on you, and it can become a brick or start requiring a subscription at any time.

nijave 3y ago
You can access the device when you're away from home if it's internet connected. Of course, the server doesn't need to be doing much besides proxying connections.
- cassianoleal 3y ago
  And of course, you can easily run a VPN/Tailscale/ZeroTier/whatever to achieve the same without the downsides.
  - api 3y ago
    There are home assistant integrations for all of those. HA can also open a port via uPnP and use Letsencrypt. You don’t need a cloud server to remotely access a device.
  - colinmorelli 3y ago
    I'm quite confident my parents and the many people like them in the world would not find running VPN/Tailscale/ZeroTier to be "easy." Nor would they have any idea how to troubleshoot when those services have issues. Nor would they want to play intermediary between Tailscale and myQ customer support to figure out which one is broken and fix it. Having options like this is great for powerusers, but the vast majority of people are not that. They need something that just works. Of course that still doesn't mean they need their garage door collecting telemetry data, but they need something more than a LAN-connected smart device.
    - iAMkenough 3y ago
      Sounds like there's a market for intermediary tech support
      - colinmorelli 3y ago
        Perhaps in general, but if the problem here is "I don't want a corporation to have access to when my garage door is open or closed" I can't fathom how "Give another corporation access to my entire network to troubleshoot my VPN and LAN configuration of my devices" is the solution?
        TeMPOraL 3y ago
        The solution is to "give my tech whiz kid/neighbor/friend, or a local IT shop two blocks over, the responsibility of managing my home network". This is where ideas like non-shit IoT, Right to Repair, Free (Libre) Software, and even "how to not fuck up foreign aid 101", all converge. The point isn't to make everyone their tech support. The point is to allow local communities to be more self-sufficient, able to manage technology on their own - as opposed to outsourcing everything to some faceless companies that have no attachment to any given community. Note that this doesn't preclude business - on the contrary, local businesses are the fundamental part of any community larger than couple dozen people; the ideas converge not on everyone doing stuff pro bono, but on small, local businesses* doing things for their communities, accumulating and retaining know-how. I wish more people from aforementioned movements realized their ultimate goal (at least in form that's possible in the real world) is the same, and joined forces.
      - kube-system 3y ago
        If your mass-market commercial product needs this by design, you will fail. To successfully sell a product to the general public, it must work out of the box.
        jollyllama 3y ago
        True, but there's contractors for pretty much everything else that can be installed on your home. Why not home automation contractors?
  - freedomben 3y ago
    I refuse to use cloud services, and I use tail scale, but telling the average consumer to do this instead of using whatever app came with the device is not going to work for most people
  - fullspectrumdev 3y ago
    > easily Not for the average consumer. I actually have gotten to know a lot of folks who are massive into home automation, who also know precisely fuck all about computers or whatnot.
  - WirelessGigabit 3y ago
    Most VPNs need significantly extra work to get notifications to pass through. For example, Apple Home does not work by default over WireGuard.
- RobotToaster 3y ago
  Why would you need to access a garage door opener when away from home?
  - heartbreak 3y ago
    To let in your cat sitter.
  - eknkc 3y ago
    Check if you left it open? Let someone in remotely?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - pmontra 3y ago
    I forgot it open.
    - _ZeD_ 3y ago
      the real solution here is to make it auto close locally.
      - pmontra 3y ago
        That's a nice to have feature. However there are cases when one wants to keep it open for hours or, as pointed by other replies, to open it to let somebody in. An edge case I just thought about: open it to let somebody delivery a package inside, possibly by looking at them with a camera, and then close it.
  - neodymiumphish 3y ago
    Give access to a friend or family member when you're out of town. Allow package deliverers to put a package in your garage instead of on your step. When I had MyQ, I used it almost exclusively when I was on my motorcycle. I had it configured so that I could tap a button on my phone that tracked my location and enabled a geofence around my house so it would ping the MyQ to open when I got about a quarter mile from home. I called this my "riding home" mode. This saved me the trouble of having to get my gloves off and open the door through the app when I got to my driveway, and I didn't have to leave a garage door opener on/with my bike.
- tmccrary55 3y ago
  You can also just do both. I'd rather that it use the LAN, if I'm there at the time. Data collection and remote access can just be their own functionality.
- tensor 3y ago
  Homekit provides this as well, and by default is local only. There really is no excuse for these devices not to support homekit out of the box other than a money grab.
ourmandave 3y ago
In the updated fairy tale, the 3rd little piggy actually perishes, because his house got bricked by the Big Bad Wolf IoT service.
- kevindamm 3y ago
  It's a good thing the piggies invested in light infrastructure and good logs with their previous houses, the next version after brick will be even better!
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    I still prefer the version where the fourth pig built its home from wolf bones - while it wasn't the best building material, it made a point.
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  Nah, the wolf just pays a minimal fee to the IoT provider so it unlocks every door on the pig's house.
lexh 3y ago
Oh, data collection. And subscriptions. This makes sense (and myQ’s privacy policy is a nightmare: https://www.myq.com/privacy-notice https://www.myq.com/privacy-notice) but I’ve never understood how this particular bit of data is valuable to anyone. Any ideas?
- firtoz 3y ago
  Number of active car owners living in an area could be valuable for a few industries and governments
- ca_tech 3y ago
  I buy a garage door opener. That is the end of my transaction. I buy a connected garage door opener. The provider knows my geolocation, my name, email address, socioeconomic status, even the phone I own. Inferences can be made on activity such as "they leave for work at 7am when garage door opens". The collection of data doesn't need to be used specifically for reengaging me with Chamberlain. It is now an asset to the company that can be sold to others as outlined in their Information Sharing section. Which basically says "we share it with everyone". Partners can be anyone from insurance companies to academic researchers. Remember that partners aren't limited to just one data set. They have the ability to ask multiple companies: "What data do you have for all occupants of houses in this geographic area?"
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    > Remember that partners aren't limited to just one data set. They have the ability to ask multiple companies: "What data do you have for all occupants of houses in this geographic area?" Yup. And to make the issue clear: there is no such thing as "anonymized data", there's only "anonymized until correlated with enough related data sets".
- gosub100 3y ago
  No direct experience, just my guesses * someone who drives frequently may rank higher for automotive products and services * use to independently rank other statistics, i.e. someone with kids probably comes and goes more than a single person or non-child-rearing couple. Take the dataset where you know they have kids (and myQ) and see if you can detect the ones with kids using only myQ data (plus other statistics). If it allows you to infer this property accurately enough, profit. * Someone who comes and goes a lot is most likely not physically disabled, so exclude them from those specific marketing materials. * someone who is home a lot (hardly ever opens their garage door) might like to spend money on useless gadgets, try selling them IoT toasters
kube-system 3y ago
> Why in the hell does a garage door opener need a server? Because the user is almost certainly installing the device behind a NAT with a dynamically assigned public IP. These are mass-market garage door openers, not devices targeted to those familiar with advanced network configuration. I also avoid cloud connected IoT stuff. I have the luxury of doing so because I have IT skills. For those who do not, accessible alternatives simply don't exist.

by api 3y ago

nijave 3y ago

You can access the device when you're away from home if it's internet connected. Of course, the server doesn't need to be doing much besides proxying connections.

cassianoleal 3y ago
And of course, you can easily run a VPN/Tailscale/ZeroTier/whatever to achieve the same without the downsides.
- api 3y ago
  There are home assistant integrations for all of those. HA can also open a port via uPnP and use Letsencrypt. You don’t need a cloud server to remotely access a device.
- colinmorelli 3y ago
  I'm quite confident my parents and the many people like them in the world would not find running VPN/Tailscale/ZeroTier to be "easy." Nor would they have any idea how to troubleshoot when those services have issues. Nor would they want to play intermediary between Tailscale and myQ customer support to figure out which one is broken and fix it. Having options like this is great for powerusers, but the vast majority of people are not that. They need something that just works. Of course that still doesn't mean they need their garage door collecting telemetry data, but they need something more than a LAN-connected smart device.
  - iAMkenough 3y ago
    Sounds like there's a market for intermediary tech support
    - colinmorelli 3y ago
      Perhaps in general, but if the problem here is "I don't want a corporation to have access to when my garage door is open or closed" I can't fathom how "Give another corporation access to my entire network to troubleshoot my VPN and LAN configuration of my devices" is the solution?
      - TeMPOraL 3y ago
        The solution is to "give my tech whiz kid/neighbor/friend, or a local IT shop two blocks over, the responsibility of managing my home network". This is where ideas like non-shit IoT, Right to Repair, Free (Libre) Software, and even "how to not fuck up foreign aid 101", all converge. The point isn't to make everyone their tech support. The point is to allow local communities to be more self-sufficient, able to manage technology on their own - as opposed to outsourcing everything to some faceless companies that have no attachment to any given community. Note that this doesn't preclude business - on the contrary, local businesses are the fundamental part of any community larger than couple dozen people; the ideas converge not on everyone doing stuff pro bono, but on small, local businesses* doing things for their communities, accumulating and retaining know-how. I wish more people from aforementioned movements realized their ultimate goal (at least in form that's possible in the real world) is the same, and joined forces.
    - kube-system 3y ago
      If your mass-market commercial product needs this by design, you will fail. To successfully sell a product to the general public, it must work out of the box.
      - jollyllama 3y ago
        True, but there's contractors for pretty much everything else that can be installed on your home. Why not home automation contractors?
- freedomben 3y ago
  I refuse to use cloud services, and I use tail scale, but telling the average consumer to do this instead of using whatever app came with the device is not going to work for most people
- fullspectrumdev 3y ago
  > easily Not for the average consumer. I actually have gotten to know a lot of folks who are massive into home automation, who also know precisely fuck all about computers or whatnot.
- WirelessGigabit 3y ago
  Most VPNs need significantly extra work to get notifications to pass through. For example, Apple Home does not work by default over WireGuard.
RobotToaster 3y ago
Why would you need to access a garage door opener when away from home?
- heartbreak 3y ago
  To let in your cat sitter.
- eknkc 3y ago
  Check if you left it open? Let someone in remotely?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- pmontra 3y ago
  I forgot it open.
  - _ZeD_ 3y ago
    the real solution here is to make it auto close locally.
    - pmontra 3y ago
      That's a nice to have feature. However there are cases when one wants to keep it open for hours or, as pointed by other replies, to open it to let somebody in. An edge case I just thought about: open it to let somebody delivery a package inside, possibly by looking at them with a camera, and then close it.
- neodymiumphish 3y ago
  Give access to a friend or family member when you're out of town. Allow package deliverers to put a package in your garage instead of on your step. When I had MyQ, I used it almost exclusively when I was on my motorcycle. I had it configured so that I could tap a button on my phone that tracked my location and enabled a geofence around my house so it would ping the MyQ to open when I got about a quarter mile from home. I called this my "riding home" mode. This saved me the trouble of having to get my gloves off and open the door through the app when I got to my driveway, and I didn't have to leave a garage door opener on/with my bike.
tmccrary55 3y ago
You can also just do both. I'd rather that it use the LAN, if I'm there at the time. Data collection and remote access can just be their own functionality.
tensor 3y ago
Homekit provides this as well, and by default is local only. There really is no excuse for these devices not to support homekit out of the box other than a money grab.

ourmandave 3y ago

In the updated fairy tale, the 3rd little piggy actually perishes, because his house got bricked by the Big Bad Wolf IoT service.

kevindamm 3y ago
It's a good thing the piggies invested in light infrastructure and good logs with their previous houses, the next version after brick will be even better!
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  I still prefer the version where the fourth pig built its home from wolf bones - while it wasn't the best building material, it made a point.
marcosdumay 3y ago
Nah, the wolf just pays a minimal fee to the IoT provider so it unlocks every door on the pig's house.

lexh 3y ago

Oh, data collection. And subscriptions. This makes sense (and myQ’s privacy policy is a nightmare: https://www.myq.com/privacy-notice https://www.myq.com/privacy-notice) but I’ve never understood how this particular bit of data is valuable to anyone. Any ideas?

firtoz 3y ago
Number of active car owners living in an area could be valuable for a few industries and governments
ca_tech 3y ago
I buy a garage door opener. That is the end of my transaction. I buy a connected garage door opener. The provider knows my geolocation, my name, email address, socioeconomic status, even the phone I own. Inferences can be made on activity such as "they leave for work at 7am when garage door opens". The collection of data doesn't need to be used specifically for reengaging me with Chamberlain. It is now an asset to the company that can be sold to others as outlined in their Information Sharing section. Which basically says "we share it with everyone". Partners can be anyone from insurance companies to academic researchers. Remember that partners aren't limited to just one data set. They have the ability to ask multiple companies: "What data do you have for all occupants of houses in this geographic area?"
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  > Remember that partners aren't limited to just one data set. They have the ability to ask multiple companies: "What data do you have for all occupants of houses in this geographic area?" Yup. And to make the issue clear: there is no such thing as "anonymized data", there's only "anonymized until correlated with enough related data sets".
gosub100 3y ago
No direct experience, just my guesses * someone who drives frequently may rank higher for automotive products and services * use to independently rank other statistics, i.e. someone with kids probably comes and goes more than a single person or non-child-rearing couple. Take the dataset where you know they have kids (and myQ) and see if you can detect the ones with kids using only myQ data (plus other statistics). If it allows you to infer this property accurately enough, profit. * Someone who comes and goes a lot is most likely not physically disabled, so exclude them from those specific marketing materials. * someone who is home a lot (hardly ever opens their garage door) might like to spend money on useless gadgets, try selling them IoT toasters

kube-system 3y ago

> Why in the hell does a garage door opener need a server? Because the user is almost certainly installing the device behind a NAT with a dynamically assigned public IP. These are mass-market garage door openers, not devices targeted to those familiar with advanced network configuration. I also avoid cloud connected IoT stuff. I have the luxury of doing so because I have IT skills. For those who do not, accessible alternatives simply don't exist.