Taking Back Your Tech: The Fight for Device Ownership
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You bought it. You own it. Right?
Not so fast.
That garage door opener? The manufacturer can brick your smart home integration whenever they want. Your Nest thermostat? Google decides what features you get – and when they disappear. That video game you paid $60 for? The publisher can kill the servers and your purchase vanishes.
This isn’t convenience. It’s control.
But here’s the good news: people are fighting back. And winning.
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The Garage Door Rebellion
In 2023, Chamberlain decided that third-party apps couldn’t talk to their garage door openers anymore. If you wanted smart home integration, you’d use their app, with their data collection, on their terms. Homebridge users? Home Assistant folks? Sorry, you’re locked out.
Enter Paul Wieland and RATGDO.
RATGDO is a small WiFi board that gives you local control of your garage door – no cloud required, no subscription, no corporate permission. It works with Chamberlain, LiftMaster, and most other openers. The firmware is open source. You can buy a pre-built board or build your own.
One person, frustrated by corporate overreach, built something better. Now thousands of people have garage doors that actually belong to them.
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Nest, No Longer Evil
Google’s Nest thermostats are smart, well-designed, and completely dependent on Google’s cloud. When Google announced they were sunsetting Nest Gen 1 and Gen 2 thermostats, millions of working devices were headed for the landfill.
Enter Cody Kociemba and No Longer Evil.
Cody’s beef with Google runs deep. He’s an Android developer who got permanently banned from the Play Store – not for malware or stealing data, but from three automated rejections by a robot that couldn’t explain what was wrong. No human review, no real appeal. Now he’s marked: anyone who works with him risks getting banned too. Google essentially decided he can never create an Android app again.
So when Google announced they were killing Nest Gen 1 and 2 thermostats, it was personal. The FULU bounty announcement lit the fire – a challenge with a reward. He dove in.
The result is custom firmware that frees your Nest thermostat from Google’s servers. Your thermostat still works, but it talks to your server (or their open platform) instead of Google. Full control. Your data. Your rules.
From his about page:
> “When you buy a piece of hardware, you own it. You should be able to do whatever the fuck you want with it. Your thermostat shouldn’t become e-waste because some corporation decided to flip the kill switch.”
Is it experimental? Yes – they’re clear about that. But the fact that it exists at all is a statement: we refuse to accept that “smart” means “rented.”
The code is open source. Fork it, modify it, break it, rebuild it. That’s the whole point.
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FULU: Organizing the Resistance
Individual projects like RATGDO and No Longer Evil are inspiring, but the problem is systemic. That’s where FULU.org comes in.
FULU is organizing the fight for device ownership at scale – and putting money where their mouth is. Their bounty program rewards developers who successfully liberate locked-down devices. That bounty is what motivated Cody to build No Longer Evil.
- Expose: Documenting anti-ownership practices
- Educate: Making complex issues accessible
- Unite: Building coalitions across communities
- Reform: Supporting legislation that protects ownership rights
From farmers fighting tractor DRM to gamers demanding server preservation to anyone who’s ever been told they can’t repair their own dishwasher – FULU is connecting the dots.
They even give awards to projects that successfully reclaim device ownership. RATGDO? That’s exactly the kind of work they celebrate.
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Why Makerspaces Care
This isn’t abstract politics. This is what makerspaces are for.
When you can’t repair your own stuff, you throw it away and buy new. When you can’t modify your devices, you’re stuck with what the manufacturer decided you need. When everything requires a subscription and an internet connection, you own nothing.
Makerspaces exist because making things yourself is an act of independence. Understanding how things work. Fixing what’s broken. Building what you need.
The right-to-repair movement and the maker movement are the same movement. We just approach it from different angles.
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What You Can Do
1. Pay attention
Follow projects like RATGDO, No Longer Evil, and FULU. Know what’s happening.
2. Vote with your wallet
Before buying smart devices, ask: What happens when the company changes their mind? Is there a local control option? Can I repair it?
3. Support the fixers
When someone builds an open alternative to a locked-down product, that’s a gift to everyone. Use it. Share it. Contribute if you can.
4. Talk about it
Most people don’t know this is happening. When your non-technical friend complains that their smart home stopped working, explain why.
5. Come to the makerspace
Seriously. Learning to solder, understanding how electronics work, getting comfortable with firmware – these are the skills that let you take control back.
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The Bottom Line
Companies are betting that convenience will beat ownership. That we’ll accept subscriptions, cloud dependencies, and planned obsolescence because the alternative seems too hard.
They’re wrong.
People like Paul Wieland are proving that one determined person with the right skills can build something that works better, lasts longer, and actually belongs to the people who buy it.
That’s the maker ethos. That’s what we’re about.
Your stuff should be yours.
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Thanks to Corny Eastman for flagging these projects. Want to talk right-to-repair, smart home hacking, or device liberation? Find us at Anchorage Makerspace or in our Slack.
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Links
- RATGDO: https://paulwieland.github.io/ratgdo/
- No Longer Evil (Nest firmware): https://docs.nolongerevil.com/
- FULU.org (advocacy): https://fulu.org
- Seattle Times article on RATGDO: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/one-man-is-fighting-for-our-right-to-control-our-garage-door-openers/
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