The two endpoints of the communication with Kohler's app are the client and the server. In WhatsApp's E2EE implementation the endpoints are two client devices. Both are valid meanings of E2EE. You're defining that "end to end" means the server cannot access it but that's simply not what it means.

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calebio 7 hours ago | parent [-]

The modern usage of E2EE definitely means that "the server cannot access it". That's the meat of this entire discussion.

While you are technically correct in a network topology sense (where the "ends" are the TCP connection points), that definition has been obsolete in consumer privacy contexts for a decade now due to "true" E2EE encryption.

If we use your definition, then Gmail, Facebook, and Amazon are all "End-to-End Encrypted" because the traffic is encrypted between my client and their server. But we don't call them E2EE because the service provider holds the keys and can see the data.

In 2025, when a company claims a camera product is "E2EE", a consumer interprets that to mean "Zero Knowledge". I.e. the provider cannot see the video feeds. If Kohler holds the keys to analyze the data, that is Encryption in Transit, not E2EE. Even though in an older sense (which is what my original comment was saying), it was "End to End Encrypted" because the two ends were defined as Client and Server and not Client to Client (e.g. FB Messenger User1 and FB Messenger User2).

	▲	lukeschlather 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> If we use your definition, then Gmail, Facebook, and Amazon are all "End-to-End Encrypted" because the traffic is encrypted between my client and their server. That may or may not be the case. TLS is always terminated at a load balancer that uses TLS but it's still common to use HTTP within datacenters. So it may not be E2EE and it's a meaningful security feature.