I'm quite confident my parents and the many people like them in the world would not find running VPN/Tailscale/ZeroTier to be "easy." Nor would they have any idea how to troubleshoot when those services have issues. Nor would they want to play intermediary between Tailscale and myQ customer support to figure out which one is broken and fix it.

Having options like this is great for powerusers, but the vast majority of people are not that. They need something that just works. Of course that still doesn't mean they need their garage door collecting telemetry data, but they need something more than a LAN-connected smart device.

There are home assistant integrations for all of those. HA can also open a port via uPnP and use Letsencrypt.

You don’t need a cloud server to remotely access a device.

Most VPNs need significantly extra work to get notifications to pass through.

For example, Apple Home does not work by default over WireGuard.

> easily

Not for the average consumer.

I actually have gotten to know a lot of folks who are massive into home automation, who also know precisely fuck all about computers or whatnot.

I refuse to use cloud services, and I use tail scale, but telling the average consumer to do this instead of using whatever app came with the device is not going to work for most people

Give access to a friend or family member when you're out of town.

Allow package deliverers to put a package in your garage instead of on your step.

When I had MyQ, I used it almost exclusively when I was on my motorcycle. I had it configured so that I could tap a button on my phone that tracked my location and enabled a geofence around my house so it would ping the MyQ to open when I got about a quarter mile from home. I called this my "riding home" mode. This saved me the trouble of having to get my gloves off and open the door through the app when I got to my driveway, and I didn't have to leave a garage door opener on/with my bike.

Putting aside the very legitimate use cases highlighted in other messages, a very simple one is: you're just arriving at home, but are still not (yet) connected to wifi.

These very practical daily occurrences can make devices incredibly annoying and frustrating for typical consumers who want it to just work.

Check if you left it open? Let someone in remotely?

To let in your cat sitter.

I forgot it open.