The New York Times recently ran an article by Brian X. Chen called “Why One Man Is Fighting for Our Right to Control Our Garage Door Openers,” which featured the story of Paul Wieland, an IT professional from Upstate New York who got so frustrated with his internet-connected garage door opener that he took matters into his own hands.
Wieland thought the idea of having his MyQ garage door opener connected to the company’s servers presented a security issue. He believed a “smart” garage door should operate only over a local Wi-Fi network to protect a home’s privacy, and so he created a product called RATGDO (which is an acronym for “Rage Against the Garage Door Opener”), which did just that. Then he discovered he was not alone in his frustrations.
Chen writes: “He had hoped to sell 100 of his new gadgets just to recoup expenses, but he ended up selling tens of thousands. That’s because MyQ’s maker did what a number of other consumer device manufacturers have done over the last few years, much to the frustration of their customers: It changed the device, making it both less useful and more expensive to operate.”
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While Wieland’s issues stemmed from MyQ, the service-plan-based hardware option is one we are all familiar with. Perhaps the highest profile example in our industry was the January 2024 launch of Control4 Connect, which created some controversy among dealers.
When these SaaS issues have arisen in custom installation, it is typically acknowledged that our clientele doesn’t even notice the myriad charges to use the devices that have been purchased, and it provides yet another reason for dealer to include their own service plans to handle not only these charges, but also the regular maintenance they provide.
But everyone has a tipping point, and the article goes on to point out other examples of homeowners fighting back when told they can no longer use the device they purchased. Especially in units that are typically expected to last a long time, such as thermostats.
In fact, Chen used Nest as another example of customer dissatisfaction and a creative solution to get around it. Chen writes: “This year, Google…discontinued support for its first- and second-generation Nest…An ambitious coder who published open-source software for users to get the defunct thermostats working again was rewarded with a FULU bounty of nearly $15,000.”
FULU stands for the FULU Foundation (Freedom from Unethical Limitations on Users), a nonprofit that fights for consumer ownership of devices and that runs a bounty program that awards money to people who can restore functionality to devices that have been bricked by manufacturers. Kevin O’Reilly is its executive director.
Chen reports: “Being able to use the stuff we bought has always been a part of an agreement between consumers and vendors,” Mr. O’Reilly said. “This is something that is touching more people.”
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It is an interesting article, though there’s no way of knowing if this movement will gain steam or if it will only be championed by a handful of ticked-off homeowners. Still, it couldn’t do any harm to source a few non-internet-connected options in areas where you can.
As for Wieland, he thinks the movement has momentum and has started a company called RATCLOUD (Rage Against the Cloud).
