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Comment by thusjustin | Hacker News Reader

Firstly, I completely agree with the sentiment in this post. I’m one of the many affected by this, and it’s annoying. Secondly, I have a hunch that there is a lawyer on the MyQ side that said that allowing customers to control their doors via api will open MyQ to liability. It’s an absurd argument since, well, it is a door with a remote control, but I can easily picture someone making that argument. I wish there was a way to ensure open compatibility of devices when they are sold, like an “open access” certification.

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It would be meaningless. Tech companies promises are worth jack shit. The tech companies messing around in these product categories are often weak and flimsy from a financial perspective. They frequently abandon products, fail, get bought by another company that may not give a shit about their promises, etc

There is no fool proof solution to this. Except maybe make your own I guess. It’s a garage door opener. An esp32 controlling a relay wired to your existing garage door remote probably won’t look as nice but I bet it ends up being more secure

https://opengarage.io

Can’t comment on quality, haven’t got around to installing yet

I've installed two of these several years ago and integrated them with Home Assistant. Working pretty well, no major complaints. It uses a distance sensor to determine whether or not the door is open, so it's not as reliable as state that that the garage door opener has. There was one time the distance sensor acted up and I didn't know if the door was up or down, which was annoying because I was 100 miles away. Other than that, it does what I need it to do.

I run a similar API program for an IoT Manufacturer. Our API is public.

I have a lot of thoughts about this.

Supporting things like this is a mixed bag IMO.

This group (especially Home Assistant) are very technical, hands on, and engaged.

I'm a one man team (soon to be two). Between the "big guys" Alexa, Google, SmartThings, HomeKit, Paying Customers (RMR) it's hard to dedicate time to support what in my world are enthusiast projects outside of simply providing the API developer portal.

On the other side, it's really fun to work with these groups. I just usually run out of time.

The dark side of these integrations is they can be really badly implemented, and possibly misused. I've had to make pull requests to more than one "scraped" API integration because it was sending tons of bad traffic and/or creating unintended results for end-users.

It is mostly a manpower problem to police, and in extreme cases like a garage door being left open/not closing becomes a liability (no matter what your API agreement says).

That being said, our public API has been a net good. We've promoted some real quality partnerships off organic visitors to the website (or my linkedin).

Why require an API in the cloud? Wouldn't that simplify and reduce the exposure to the business?

Why not allow people to securely talk to the IOT device right on the local network? I think that then really puts a bright line on where the liability lays.

TBH, I've always felt that the HA integration with myq was likely a burden for them. It makes way too many requests, IIRC.

But that isn't really their reason. They don't allow IFTT to open the door. Alexa and Google Assistant support is extremely limited.

They've focused on partnerships that directly produce revenue. It is purely a cash grab.

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