Chamberlain packed its app with ads while disabling third-party access:
Chamberlain Group—the owner of most of the garage door opener brands like LiftMaster, Chamberlain, Merlin, and Grifco—would like its customers to stop doing smart home things with its "myQ" smart garage door openers. The company recently issued a statement decrying "unauthorized usage" of its smart garage door openers. That's "unauthorized usage" by the people who bought the garage door opener, by the way. Basically, Chamberlain's customers want to trigger the garage door and see its status through third-party smart home apps, and Chamberlain doesn't want that.
Here's the statement:
Chamberlain Group recently made the decision to prevent unauthorized usage of our myQ ecosystem through third-party apps.
This decision was made so that we can continue to provide the best possible experience for our 10 million+ users, as well as our authorized partners who put their trust in us. We understand that this impacts a small percentage of users, but ultimately this will improve the performance and reliability of myQ, benefiting all of our users.
We encourage those who were impacted to check out our authorized partners here: https://www.myq.com/works-with-myq.
We caught wind of this statement through the Home Assistant blog, a popular open source smart home platform. The myQ integration is being stripped from the project because it doesn't work anymore. Allegedly, Chamberlain has been sabotaging Home Assistant support for a while now, with the integration maintainer, Lash-L, telling the Home Assistant blog, "We are playing a game of cat and mouse with MyQ and right now it looks like the cat is winning."
Our immediate question is why would any garage opener company care about customers using its garage door opener. You sell garage door openers—isn't usage the goal? A quick perusal through the app store reviews reveals what's going on. The iOS app is sitting pretty at 4.8 stars, but the Android app has suffered a wave of one-star reviews starting in October.
"Sadly, this app now displays advertisement at the very top and I cannot find a way to disable it," writes one Play Store reviewer (Google doesn't provide links to reviews). "This is very disturbing and on top of it, it moves my garage opening button out of the visible part of the screen. So to use it I now have to first look at the ads, then scroll down and hope to find my button." Another user writes, "I don't want ads in an app that I have already paid for the companion product." Other one-star reviews mention things like, "I clicked door open/close event and it popped up the video storage subscription dialog to ask me to subscribe," and, "Most of the app is dedicated to trying to upsell you on services and devices you don't need."
Ah, now it makes sense. Your garage door opener app isn't here only to open your garage door; it's here to display ads and upsell you on services. Using third-party apps would get around Chamberlain's hardware-app-as-ad-platform strategy, so they are now banned. Another part of this is probably the plug at the end of Chamberlain's statement to "check out our authorized partners," which includes companies like Amazon and Alarm.com.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Friday November 10 2023, @09:31PM (6 children)
IoT is something you're supposed to market to users, users are not supposed to actually use it.
So they funded the servers on the assumption that 0.0001% of purchasers would actually use the app, but "smart home app" type users 100% connect to it 24x7 and they likely never budgeted for people to actually USE it. IoT is just something that belongs on marketing materials.
Once consumers are trained to the idea that IoT in marketing means it doesn't work, they'll stop marketing it and shut down the servers entirely.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Friday November 10 2023, @09:52PM (5 children)
The sad part is that they could have easily made this either serverless or allowed the server to run on customer's hardware.
They could have just put a REST API on the opener. Bluetooth would also be useful. They could get WiFi, bluetooth, and a good CPU all in one package. For example, ESP32.
They WANTED it dependent on their server so they could pull crap like this later. Honestly, it's just about half a hair away from intent to defraud.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Friday November 10 2023, @10:04PM
My 1970s opener had a serverless system where I had a zwave security sensor connected to a mercury switch, the whole works tie strapped to the door, connected via normal z-wave to homeassistant.
Its cheap and more reliable than the server-based IoT "solution" and I'm still using it to turn lights on and off. I just deleted the myq integration from my homeassistant as apparently its never going to be fixed, and I don't care about the myq shutdown because my mercury switch solution works better anyway.
I do have to replace the battery roughly every two years which is mildly annoying, whereas the door opener has 120V AC so I'm "saving the earth" by throwing out a battery every other year.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday November 11 2023, @02:11PM (2 children)
I have a MyQ enabled garage door opener. I intentionally never connected it to Google home because I don't want Google home having the ability to open my garage door. Yes, they did pack it with ads, but the most annoying part is that it's cloud-based and can't work on a local connection. When the cloud is down, the garage door has to be opened by alternate means.
Annoying as it is, the phone-based app for opening and closing the garage door is a massive improvement over the old RF remotes that are stuck in the cars glove boxes, simply because I always have my phone with me.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday November 11 2023, @04:56PM (1 child)
If opening my garage door relied on my cell phone working, my car would be permanently in the basement garage, where cell phone signals don't reach.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday November 11 2023, @05:38PM
Not my fault you live in an undeveloped cave ;-)
Part of what makes MyQ and the other phone based things I do so useful is our WiFi mesh system that gives solid coverage anywhere on our acre+ of land and in all the buildings.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday November 13 2023, @02:53PM
Intent? I say it IS fraud. It should be considered felonious vandalism to interrupt any use of any device I own no matter who manufactured it.
The greedy rich bastards are really getting bad lately.
It is a disgrace that the richest nation in the world has hunger and homelessness.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Ken_g6 on Friday November 10 2023, @09:57PM (3 children)
That's a short story by Cory Doctorow, [arstechnica.com] by the way.
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Saturday November 11 2023, @05:41AM (2 children)
I WISH I could say that story is too far out there, but sadly it is all too plausible given the current state of things. It's why my "Smart TV" is actually a dumb TV with a Raspberry PI connected.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday November 11 2023, @02:13PM (1 child)
When we replaced our TV 5 years ago, I specifically paid double to get a ViewSonic monitor with no smarts in it whatsoever compared to an ad sponsored smart TV.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday November 13 2023, @12:18AM
Good call! Mine's a few years older so it wasn't yet that hard to find a non-smart TV. The picture is good, so I'll keep it going as long as possible.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Friday November 10 2023, @09:59PM (3 children)
That's the other problem, they have essentially a monopoly on "big box openers you can buy at 2pm Sunday when you need it on demand" which is how I ended up with one.
As a monopoly they don't need to compete so funding IoT servers after the sale is a losing proposition. The people buying a cheapie opener at 2pm on Sunday in a hurry don't care about the IoT feature, they care that its in stock at Home Depot and they can probably get it installed before sunset.
They won't lose any money by shutting down the servers.
I have one, I did not buy it for the integration (LOL) but the homeassistant integration did occasionally work very well in between their attempts to shut it down.
The only use I have for it is turning lights on/off when the door opens and it turns out you don't need a pile of IoT infra for that, you can just use a zwave security sensor with mercury switch input tie-strapped to the door. That works really well and 100% reliable and cheap, also. So I have a rule in homeassistant something like if the garage door opens and the elevation of the sun is negative then the lights over my side door stairs turn on, likewise if the garage door closes the lights over my side door stairs turn off... I'm using trigger mode so to speak. Works pretty well...
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday November 11 2023, @03:45AM (1 child)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Sunday November 12 2023, @07:54PM
I call out foul on you; my Win98 installation hosting my x10 smarthome network "server" still works. In fact it has been so smooth and seamless I had to think a moment as to how to connect to it remotely (as opposed to going to the KVM and pressing a button while standing in front of it to get it to show up on the connected... kvm stuff).
I had to replace the original hard disk drive on that system with something more modernized (like.. a compact flash card small enough to still work within the BIOS limitations of the system...), but it actually is pretty awesome now. It boots in 1/4 the time it used to, and I also use a compressed ramdisk for the swap file. For a little while, I had it boot over the network, but I didn't want to make a dependency on a server that acted as The House's Brain pretty much, so I kept it local. I really can't imagine connecting through the internet to control a device I am standing next to, but then I always have been against depending on someone else's computer that I have no control over.
And an app to open a garage door? I consider that to be crazy. I thought I was rebellious when I was using a universal TV remote when the battery in my garage door opener stopped working and it required a lithium button battery I didn't happen to have and was also inconvenient to replace... but I'd never expect to install an app.
Did your 'app' work without cell service? Modern smart home things often require having a working cell phone with an active number--a tablet with wifi won't do--even though the wifi is used... and not to actually have a direct connection. It is used to go over the internet to send a command back through the internet to the device in question, which has a local network connection on the same network the request came from.
(Needless to say, if then; eff that. I ain't giving up my privacy so easily!)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2023, @04:53AM
> they have essentially a monopoly on "big box openers you can buy at 2pm Sunday when you need it on demand" which is how I ended up with one.
Thanks for the warning, now I know what to avoid. We can open the door manually while we figure out what to buy and wait for delivery if it has to be ordered in.
The opener that was here when we bought this older house 15 years ago is still working just fine, but it sure seemed like it was struggling at first. Then I flipped the mechanical disconnect and discovered that the door springs weren't even close to balancing the weight of the door. Once I got that adjusted properly (there are good YT videos) the opener works great. It's the kind with the motor spinning a long screw, I grease the screw about once a year to keep things quiet (and happy).
It came plugged into a switched outlet with the switch in the mud room. Same circuit runs the primary garage ceiling light, so it's easy to see when the opener is operable or is powered off. No automation, but I think pretty good security, even with ancient clickers. It's always powered off when we're both home, we power it up when we're about to take a car out. When the last person leaves the house for any extended period, we shut off the opener power (a few steps out of the car) and exit by the side door. Of course slightly inconvenient when returning from a trip, the first person back has to use a key to get in and re-power the opener.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Friday November 10 2023, @10:13PM (8 children)
Clearly people cannot be stupid enough to actually hand over the keys to their home to an unknown entity and just ask that entity politely to open the doors for them.
Right?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 11 2023, @01:49AM (3 children)
Keep in mind how stupid the average person is. Remember that half of the people are even stupider.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2023, @04:56AM (1 child)
Even if you don't put much faith in IQ testing, consider that the average (or the mean?) is curved to 100.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Opportunist on Saturday November 11 2023, @07:18AM
And then you usually have someone going "I have 92 out of 100, that means I'm super intelligent, right?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Saturday November 11 2023, @02:19PM
Carlin is dead. Long live his wisdom.
Scarier still than considering the average person is considering the 10th percentile. 350 million people in the United States. 35 million of them are in the bottom 10%.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Funny) by Thexalon on Saturday November 11 2023, @11:38AM (1 child)
"Open the garage doors, HAL!"
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Opportunist on Sunday November 12 2023, @03:48PM
I'm afraid I can't do that Dave, you gave me a bad review [slate.com].
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday November 11 2023, @02:16PM
If you have a completely empty garage with a solid locking door to the rest of the house, I can see how that might be convenient for Amazon deliveries and similar. The only time in our life we ever had such a thing was when we moved into a rental.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday November 13 2023, @02:58PM
Clearly people cannot be stupid enough to actually hand over the keys to their home to an unknown entity
Have you never driven in traffic?
It is a disgrace that the richest nation in the world has hunger and homelessness.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by BlueCoffee on Saturday November 11 2023, @05:20PM
So is Chamberlain forcing owners to use their ad-infested smartphone app in lieu of the keypad, remotes, or the car's own programmable garage door opener button? Using your smartphone app just to open & close your garage door seems like overkill when one-button solutions come with every opener.
I have a 6-year old Chamberlain MyQ but it was never connected it to WIFI or my smartphone. Never saw the point when it's easier to use the keypad, a remote, or my car's own programmable garage door opener button.