Why have they done this? Is it because the 3rd party bulbs were cheaper?
Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights
11–20 of 303 posts
Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights
#12So what would you recommend we use instead?
I would strongly recommend that any home automation device you buy has a direct method that it can be interfaced with and programmed in a local way. If a device is only programmable by a web API, rule it out.
You may also wish to consider looking for devices which are based on a switch, rather than a bulb. Controllable bulbs do not play nice with the state of physical light switches, and in the case of multi-bulb fixtures, bulb solutions may be excessively expensive. Meanwhile, a smart switch plays nice with physical users and can control as many bulbs as you want.
Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights
#13So what would you recommend we use instead?
I personally use these: http://www.amazon.com/Mi-Light-Dual-Color-Dimmable-Light/dp/...
as they have an open api. I'd love to see a real open-source one though
Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights
#14So what would you recommend we use instead?
I just bought some Milight compatible bulbs, hub, and remote. It's less advanced and plug-and-play as the Philips system but hacker friendly. I'm currently coding up my own light wake-up alarm system (which is the reason I bought it).
Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights
#15Why have they done this? Is it because the 3rd party bulbs were cheaper?
I'd refrain from making assumptions until more is known.
Another hypothetical possibility is that there is some corner case of the open standard that nobody realized was ambiguous until Philips changed an implementation detail that broke (non-compliant) third-party devices, and they're now stuck in the rock / hard-place situation of deciding whether to roll back their change and remove whatever functionality or fix just got added or to apply pressure to third parties to be more compliant with the standard.
(That's the charitable interpretation that assumes their software quality process is solid enough that they can even know such nuances and subtleties as "What change did we make that broke third-party devices that aren't physically in our testing bullpen?")
Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights
#16Surely with the Pi Zero selling at $5 there has got to be way to do this without Philip's locked in, expensive system?
Philips uses ZigBee, so you'll have to add the cost of an expansion board.
Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights
#17I've ranted about this and the IoT and how we've came to it.
IoT is awesome, and super, as long as you don't buy products that require to beg for your data from some website API.
What makes more sense? Local device ->Internet ->Someone else's server(cloud) ->API ->Your cell/computer
-or-
Local Device ->Local controller
I extensively use Node-Red and Apache NiFi both. Node-Red is built on Node.js and is a graphical flowchart programming in the browser. It makes chaining together complex interactions easy and also makes many things no-code at all.
I use Node-Red for my home automation. It's open source, it works, and just makes sense.
Now, what should you use for the light bulbs? Unfortunately not Phillips Hue. This however opens up the market for others to come in and snipe business away. And that's a good thing. And whatever takes away the power of "other peoples' servers" cloud-crap, the better. It's just used as a way to control and extract more money.
Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights
#18Damn. I just bought my first Hues a week ago - a little spendy but worth every penny to have a super easy install into my living room lamps and be able to be controlling my lights from a ruby script in 5 minutes. Hopefully, someone will release a crack sometime soon.
Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights
#19Why have they done this? Is it because the 3rd party bulbs were cheaper?
Official Reason: "The lamp that cannot be added may be a lamp from another brand. Philips does not test and cannot guarantee the behavior of all bulbs from other brands connected to the Philips Hue system. To guarantee the quality of consumer experience only Philips Hue and Friends of Hue lamps can be added using the the Philips Hue [Hub]." [1]
Real Reason: We invested money into our hub and building out our partnerships w/ Zigbee and "Friends of Hue" partners. We need to make up that money on hardware ($60 per bulb [2]) that 3rd parties could manufacture and sell for a fraction of the price. Why would we let 3rd party hardware companies leech off our investment?
[1] https://home-assistant.io/images/blog/2015-12-philips-hue-3r...
Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights
#20Are there grounds for a lawsuit when a manufacturer pushes out an update to a product that intentionally degrades its feature set like this? This is no longer the same product that these users bought, it's effectively damaged by the update.