Chamberlain packed its app with ads while disabling third-party access.
  • WhereGrapesMayRule@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    11 months ago

    It took me 2 hours of coding and an hour of wiring up a $10 raspberry pi zero with a $1.00 pair of sensors to reproduce their functionality with my own app. Fun little project and I didn’t have to deal with their crappy application.

      • ElusiveClarity@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        11 months ago

        If you are looking for an all in one solution that will work for most setups, the Shelly 1 is a great option. It’s wifi, so no extra hubs needed. Has full local control with a web interface and optional mobile app with (cloud based) control from anywhere. It can switch ac or dc and has a set of dry contacts that you can connect an external switch or sensor to. Another cool feature is a fallback WiFi connection. If it loses connection to your WiFi, it can broadcast its own network for you to connect to. It’s also only around $15-$20. I used one on my driveway gate for a few years and it worked great. The relay would activate the gate opener and I had a cheap reed switch wired into the dry contacts to tell me if the gate was opened or closed.

      • RupeThereItIs@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        Your probably better off with a ratgdo for the controler hardware and home assistant if you want an app on your phone.

  • ArbiterXero@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    11 months ago

    Here’s where their claim is bullshite.

    If it’s a “small percentage” that’s affected, why waste the effort to block it?

    They’re planning on charging a monthly fee, and I they’re lying about the small percentage.

    I think they want to see how many people will convert to their app.

    • ramble81@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      11 months ago

      I thought I read from the article, 0.2% of their users were responsible for 50% of the API calls. Most likely due to how things were integrating or polling?

      • ArbiterXero@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        11 months ago

        Or because their app sucks and 99.8% of people set it up and never use it.

        If it were a polling issue, they could have worked with 3rd party integrations and asked for mitigations or changes to the services. The changes shouldn’t be that hard, they’re known problems with documented solutions.

        This is the same as “network neutrality is bad because a small number of users use a lot”

        Hell, they could have set up a “free tier” that had a limited number of requests.

        Or the best answer, they could have made an “all local network” api that allowed them to skip out on data costs entirely for people that don’t want to use their app.

        Why did they skip out on any of the solutions available that allowed users to continue to integrate?

        💰

  • NOT_RICK@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    11 months ago

    I’m going through this currently, my Homebridge setup was working great until this bullshit. I’ll never buy one of their shitty products again