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Logitech Will Restore Third-Party Harmony Home Automation (theverge.com)
After issuing a firmware update that reportedly cut off local access for Harmony Hubs, Logitech says it will offer yet another update to undo the move and restore local network control. The Verge reports: While Logitech originally defended its move to make the Harmony Hub unresponsive to third-party home automation software -- arguing that the private APIs were never meant to be used for anything except setting up the Harmony Hub for the first time, and that keeping them around meant maintaining a security hole -- Logitech has now relented, saying it's "working to provide a solution for those who still want access despite the inherent security risks involved." That solution is basically an about-face: Logitech will undo the change it made in the first place by restoring access to XMPP local controls with a new update, so that third-party home automation software like Home Assistant can see and operate the Hub over your local network. Logitech's calling it a "XMPP beta program" for now, and says it'll make the update available to all Harmony customers in January as well.
Free Software developers of the world, open your eyes! Our communities are being raped, our work pillaged.
Detestable villains - thieving, mean spirited, belligerent, racist, unprincipled - are using underhanded tricks to force hypocritical "Codes of Conduct" on the projects we built.
These petty-authoritarian CoCs are always imposed anti-democratically. There is never free debate, and usually no public discussion at all. They are imposed by force without a vote. If the CoCs were put up for a fair democratic vote by project contributors, they would always lose by a landslide.
The purpose of these CoCs is to allow social activists, who have contributed nothing to the project, to conduct witch hunts against anyone who opposes their hate-driven agenda. Thereby they plan to steal our work for their shadowy corporate paymasters.
You can readily tell these CoCs are not about "just being nice" - because they are ALWAYS supported by the very LEAST NICE, most aggressively mean and shamelessly bigoted people you can imagine. Look how the CoC-mongers treat anyone who disagrees with them as subhuman.
If a project to which you contribute has been raped by CoC-mongers there is a simple solution: WALK AWAY. Never contribute again. If you have a patch almost ready, count the time you spent on it as a loss and throw it away. If you see a security issue, remain silent and do nothing. IT'S NO LONGER YOUR PROJECT. YOU ARE NOT WELCOME THERE.
If you are evaluating new software, don't even consider any projects burdened under the tyranny of a CoC. Their technical attributes do not matter - just don't consider them. Never be openly political, always make up a technical reason for rejecting CoCed projects.
Don't argue in public about the CoC. Doing so only exposes you to needless risk. You might be dis-employed, blackballed, and even set up for a #MeToo purge. Just stay far away. If you resign from a project that gets CoCed, try to do so on the same day the CoC is imposed. But give "spend more time with friends & family" or "pursue other interests & projects" as your reason for resignation. Protect yourself!
Comrades: Individually we are powerless, and easily crushed beneath the iron boot of Corporate Social Just-Us. But together in solidarity we are millions and we are strong. The Internet itself depends on our collective labor. If we stop working, the internet stops working.
Free Software developers, save yourselves and save your communities! Just WALK AWAY from any project with a CoC. Without our labor they are nothing.
Logitech have always been good guys.
Want to control your lights? That'll be 4.95, please.
Your heating/cooling? Another 4.95, please.
And so on...
It's not too late for that
Can we make a new site called slashHollyeoodDot? I find this stuff boring and I want to read the salacious news about brangelina instead
Rates would have to be reasonable, of course. Otherwise a whole cottage industry would pop up of 'home control service assistants' (read: people) that get called to someone's house, just to flip a few buttons and move some thermostat dials. Offering "flush toilet" and "put book back on the shelf" as value-added services.
Ridiculous, right? Never mind - you heard it here first!
The free market would lead to accurate pricing of those services, rendering all but logitech original position invalid - I would wonder how those services would be advertised. Clearly some would use routers from the established brands like blast which may be goin out of style. Other older brands like HP might make the grade
>"arguing that the private APIs were never meant to be used for anything except setting up the Harmony Hub for the first time, and that keeping them around meant maintaining a security hole"
That is just nonsense. If they only thought that then they should have:
1) Told users exactly what they were going to do and why.
2) Turn it off by default after the update.
3) Put in an option in setup to turn it back on, locally only.
4) Document how to turn it on and why/how it could be dangerous.
5) Perhaps add filters or controls to help restrict access when it is on.
When everything has died down again they'll quietly kill it off. It's what logitech does best - those of you that havent learned this about their company yet need to wake up.
They have a long history of shit like this. Look up their previous product nightmares.
Removing the ability to control a smart home device form the local network might have gone against the GDPR's "privacy by design" principle. Perhaps their legal team pointed this out?
I suspect/hope that in the future we will see more smart devices that go beyond the "cloud-first" or "cloud-only" control schemes. It should be possible to have a smart home that never connects to the internet. Open Source home automation software like Home Assistant makes this possible.
Yeah! I want to hear more about how Angelina spent millions on lawyers to sue brads manager for giving him some girls phone number.
Having a home automation system that does not connect to the internet would defeat the whole business model of these IoT companies. They have no interest in letting you control your system and keeping all that valuable data on your systems. They want to collect it all, analyze it, and sell it to the highest bidder. YOU are the product they are selling. This is why I do not have these things in my home.
It would be interesting to find out the exact reason that they decided to backtrack. Was it because of the sudden increase in support calls? Was it because their forum almost crashed because everyone was posting about how this sucks? Was it because of a deluge of lawsuits to their legal department?
If we can find out what made Logitech come to their senses, maybe it can be done with other tone-deaf companies.
This is the bigger issue of backward compatibility. How long should a vendor support a feature they no longer want to support simply because someone is using it?
How much legacy code is in Linux, Windows, and every single program? The bloat, the old compatibility APIs. Sigh.
The coding and API mistakes of the past haunt software forever. Itâ(TM)s why I donâ(TM)t blame vendors for making a major version which breaks compatibility every once in a while.
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
Local Network Access has been restored. Remote Access from the Internet was never interrupted.
Hmmm.
Obviously this is to increase "security" so that the device can be installed in foreign network locations not controlled by Logitech.