Haier withdraws takedown request to plugin developer, blames API calls

Haier will be in talks with the developer of Home Assistant plug-ins to whom it sent a takedown request last week. In a letter, the company says it wants to continue supporting an open API. The request was sent because the plugin was making too many API calls.

Developer Andre0512 shares on his GitHub page a letter Haier sent to him. Haier made headlines last week when it sent a takedown request to Andre0512, who had developed a Home Assistant plugin that allowed users to control various Haier devices. Haier demanded that the plug-in be taken offline “because it used Haier’s services in an unauthorized manner.”

Haier has now contacted the developer. The company says it values ​​open standards and refers to the fact that it supports many third-party services, just like standards such as Matter. The company also says the earlier letter it sent was “standard protocol” within the company. That happened because the company saw a “substantial increase” in API calls to the AWS environment that Haier’s hOn app works with. The company does not provide specific figures, but attributes the large increase to the developer’s plug-in. Andre0512 writes himself that the plug-ins make an API request every five seconds, in addition to a request with every user trigger. The developer wants to know from Haier what a more realistic number of calls would be.

Haier says it wants to continue working together to optimize the plug-in so that it costs less money for the company. Haier also wants to ‘work together to serve the community’. The company wants to discuss this with the developer. Haier now also has wrote a blog post containing his vision on IoT ecosystems.