I don’t use Haier products but a similar thing happened with Chamberlain when they blocked the MyQ integration even though it was using the legitimate API and not breaking any rules. No attempt to work with anyone in the HA community at all, just shut everything down.

On one hand, this means projects like Home Assistant are getting popular enough to have enough usage to effect these companies. So that’s great! In the long term, we’ll all figure out solutions, but in the short term it feels like an increasing fight between corporate and open-source control over smart devices.

IMO, it’s also worth the yearly cost for voice integration with Google Nest/Home or similar devices. Both can be done without paying but it’s so much easier and I know it’ll be supported over time.

In my experience, almost all stability problems I’ve had with Home Assistant are either due to the devices (not HA or the hardware I’m running it on, individual lights and switches, etc) or dead batteries in same.

What protocols are you using for your devices? Zigbee, Zwave, Wifi, something else?

I see your point, but SBF is still a great example of the inequalities of the justice system quite well. Not just because of this incident, but specifically because he is getting the book thrown at him.

SBF is the 2023 version of Ken Lay–he is being made an example because he stole from other rich people.

One of the most prominent generative AI tools that has been making headlines in the last few months. Stable Diffusion is specifically meant to create fully artificial, photo-realistic images. If you’ve ever seen one of those “all of these people don’t exist” montages, it was almost certainly using images generated by this tool.

I don’t use it, but my impression is that people who prefer MQTT either have a lot of other devices already working that way, or use additional programs like Node Red to handle some of what HA can also do which require MQTT.

The first part is very understandable, as that’s pretty much why all of us likely end up with a favorite protocol! I didn’t really plan to be mostly using Zigbee and Hue devices, but now that it’s the case I am going to keep going in that direction even more.

If you already have a Hue hub, you can integrate with that from HA without new hardware or a direct connection. That is what I do for some of my Hue bulbs, but I do also have a Zigbee radio plugged into my Home Assistant Blue hardware as I have non-Hue Zigbee devices, too.

My experience is that Hue devices are the most reliable of everything I have in terms of both response time and connection. Zigbee devices vary a lot in quality, but my biggest issue are some switches that occasionally (but repeatedly) have to be re-paired, but generally as long as HA recognizes the device the reaction time and reliability of Zigbee is pretty solid.