Can you clarify whether the Hubitat Terms of Service (Terms of service – HUBITAT) allow the transfer of a hub to a new owner? The ToS seem to prohibit that (emphasis added):
Hubitat Platform.
a. Hubitat grants to Customer a limited, non-transferable, non-exclusive, non-assignable, revocable right to access and use the Software for Customer’s own personal use through the expiration or termination of the Agreement. The Software shall be made available to Customer as a service that Customer may access and use for the Term (as defined below) of the Agreement. “Software” means the object code form of the computer programs provided with the Hub and services provided by Hubitat's cloud and made available by Hubitat for license to Customer including firmware, cloud services, bug fixes for, updates to, or upgrades thereof, at Hubitat’s sole discretion.
and
Blockquote
Ownership of Hubitat Intellectual Property. Hubitat shall at all times remain the sole owner and retain all right, title and interest in and to the Hubitat Platform, any copyrights, trademarks, trade names, or other intellectual property of Hubitat’s and any other intellectual property which is a part of the Hubitat Platform or which otherwise is provided by Hubitat to Customer during the Term of this Agreement (collectively, the “Hubitat Intellectual Property”). Customer shall not offer, loan, encumber, sell, or otherwise transfer the Hubitat Intellectual Property to any third party.
No affiliation with Hubitat, and not a lawyer, but in practice the transfer of ownership of the physical hub device is permitted. The new owner must register the hub device and agree to the TOS to be granted the rights to use the Hubitat platform and services.
"You can sell the hub as a whole, but you can't strip out the software and sell it (or give it away) separately" "You can only sell the unit intact, and unaltered" or something like that.
They are trying to protect their software/firmware (the intellectual property).
Thaks to several people in the community for responding, but [unsurprisingly] no one speakjng for Hubitat has made an official post affecting the ToS.
Since the ToS defines the "platform" to include the firmware, which is inseparable from the physical hub (ie, end users can't wipe the firmware and just sell the hardware), the legality of transferring the device is unclear to me.
I believe I understand the intent of the ToS and the practice of reselling used hubs...but my question about the official policy remains unanswered.
I think you have that backwards. The hardware is fairly useless without the firmware. The firmware is what the concern is.
I am not sure you do. It is fairly clear that they have never prosecuted anyone for selling an intact used hub to someone else. And in fact they do allow doing so and have made steps to make it easier to transfer to the new owner as outlined in marktheknife's link above. People have even on occasion sold used hubs on this very forum, so if it were taboo, that would have been shut down quite quickly.
It's pretty clear. You can do what you want in terms of reselling the hub a whole (hub and software) What you may not do is sell the software altered without the express permission of Hubitat. It's pretty boilerplate. As for their declared stance, that's pretty much outlined in the entire terms of service. If you don't understand the terms of service, I suggest you perhaps hire a contract attorney to explain it to you. So bottom line, erase to remove personal info, throw up on eBay... no one cares...
I may exceed the speed limit while driving, and may not have been prosecuted in the past.
That doesn't mean that speeding is legal or allowed.
The recent announcement about making it easier to remove a registered hub doesn't reference transferring the hub to another owner at all -- it's a good announcement, and entirely consistent with Hubitat's stance of not requiring a network connection for home automation, but doesn't necessarily have anything to do with a sale or transfer.
I brought up this question because I intend to honor the ToS, but it would be easier if the ToS or a statement from HE explicitly approved of the practice of transferring ownership of hubs.
While I appreciate the enthusiasm from other community members as evidenced in your responses, the only binding answer would be from someone speaking for Hubitat (which I don't expect), so I don't plan to continue this thread.
