I know we already got another thread about this topic, but I wanted to highlight the stance of home assistant for this topic.
I really don’t see how you can argue with this post. Well, I can, but I really don’t want to think about it.
This always annoys me. How can a device you have purchased outright with certain functionality, have the terms of service changed after the point of purchase which then changes that usage of the device.
This seems like you could return for refund as the device is NOW not what you originally purchased.
Where does this end? We buy a car then 5yrs later they change the terms of service and if you don’t agree you don’t get the right to have tires on your car.
Until something is legislated, this will continue to the end-user’s detriment.
I bought some Philips Hue bulbs In something like 2015 which have worked mostly fine ever since, but the control surface has become more and more intrusive over the years. I’m now relegating the bulbs to dumb use until they finally die.
I have completely swapped to just normal LED dimmer switches.
I live far enough out in the country that we get brown outs for less than an eye blink. Every fucking light bulb will shine bright like a diamond and there is no way to turn it off.
I’ve tried setting the ‘Power On’ Behavior but it just ignores it for these scenarios. It’s so maddening to wake up at 3 AM with every light on having paid hundreds for light bulbs I ‘own’ but can’t command.
I feel that at the very least, the customer in that case should be entitled to a complete refund of the product, regardless of whether they bought it 5 days or 5 years ago and regardless of the condition their device is in.
This should at least give some incentive to companies to not perform such sweeping changes to their terms of service and if they do, the customer can more easily remove themselves from the lock-in without taking a financial hit.
Why does your lightbulb need to connect to the internet at all? Automation does not require the cloud.
Philips joining the companies of 2023 screwing over their customers. I don’t see this slowing down as they all get away with it
Just get a zigbee usb stick and ditch the hue bridge.
Yep! With zigbee2mqtt you even get bulb firmware updates too 😎
Could you tell me more, because I don’t know anything about this and would like to?
Just did that. Most work was flashing the correct firmware onto the zigbee stick and now I have transferred almost all my Hue and Ikea lights. Except for those farthest way from the stick, they seem to be unable to join.
If anyone got a hint how to join these without moving the lights (screwed to the ceiling) or the stick (integrated in my server cabinet), I’d be grateful.
Capitalism is so exhausting. Can’t they just make a lighbulb that changes colour and leave it at that?
you could buy that - but you decided on philips cloud crap instead?
I guess I could keep buying them and sticking them on my zigbee network, but I should probably get off the Hue train before things get worse. The issue is that they’re just amazing bulbs and I can’t find a competitor with similar light and color tuning. Are there any comparable options yet?
Nanoleaf bulbs are great and their Essentials line work offline without an account.
I wouldn’t say they’re great; they’re adequate. There’s a lot of issues with the bulb firmware that still needs ironing out both with stability and feature set.
What features are you missing?
Basic features like turning a bulb on with a set brightness or color (if you’re lucky, you can turn on with a set brightness). No support for scenes (due to matter spec) which can lead to issues sending commands to light groups. And if you want to actually update bulbs good luck because it’s buggy as hell.
I have a nice mix of Hue and IKEA bulbs in my house, running on zigbee2mqtt. The IKEA bulbs are solid and I’ve had no major issues, but I did notice their smaller E14 bulbs had an annoying faint buzz sound when they were off, so they got swapped out for hue bulbs.
But as long as you’re running zigbee2mqtt or some other hub I would still consider hue bulbs as an option.
Philips be like
I don’t use Home Assistant but this is still saddening to see. Hue was always my favorite to recommend to tech folks because of the local API being pretty easy. I’m sure that will go too. Lifx was another favorite of mine but don’t work in my new house with multiple wifi APs with the same name. (I got a shitty little extender with a different name and use them in my basement.) Wiz is cheap but to my knowledge there’s no public API so I have no idea if it works with Home Assistant.
Would it not be possible to block this using firewall rules?
I liked having the full Hue ecosystem because it meant that I could tinker with HomeAssistant and the lights wouldn’t stop responding during restarts. I also already have a cloud account from the pre-HA days so that’s no big change for me but…
This is still a scumbag move.
IKEA Tradfri’d be better, considering these changes. I have some for my bedroom and it’s working well with HASS.
Philips took a risk with their brand letting Signify use it.
Signify is just the “new” name of what once was Philips Lighting. Not a new company or anything.
