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Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

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Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#51

Post by kefka »

femto113 wrote: post #32
kefka wrote: post #17

I'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 fl…

Hue's hub works both ways, locally Smartphone -> Hub over WiFi (via a shared LAN connection, the Hub isn't it's own WAP), or remotely Smartphone -> Hue.com -> Hub over the internet. The remote mode has profoundly more lag, but also means you can turn on your lights from anywhere. The connection from Hub to the bulbs is always Zigbee. Unless/until Zigbee is built into smartphones this seems like a nearly ideal set up.

Zigbee isn't hard to implement within a Node-Red network. You can use an Arduino-Zigbee bridge to talk on that network, and then control the lights however you wish. In that case, it opens up using all the lights you choose from the cheaper_than_phillips category.

I also use Node-red on a Raspberry Pi. It's slim and as small as a base station. I also have Bluetooth, wifi, and nRF24L01+ boards on it, talking all those protocols. No reason for Zigbee, but it would be doable for $15 (I assume the price).

I've found the "from anywhere", at least for Node-Red is to use a static IP. If you dont have that, a dynamic one will work. If that doesn't work, a ToR hidden service works well.

My control over my hardware is always advantageous over control by a 3rd party entity.

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#52

Post by IshKebab »

mdip wrote: post #35

I'll never understand why companies make such customer hostile decisions. I can't see any upside to this and I can't imagine what the discussion looked like when implementing this decision. My (admittedly cynical) guess is that it was one part "We're fielding a lot of support questions on products that aren't ours and our malfunctioning" and two parts "Our customers will be more motivated to buy Philips Hue products…

Having been involved in a couple of these discussions, I'd say it is more like "Shouldn't we control this? Are other people doing stuff with our products that we don't control? That's bad isn't it? Let's stop them."

I.e. it's more about paranoid control than actual reasons.

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#53

Post by tomlongson »

llamataboot wrote: post #18

Damn. 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.

Consider returning it and writing a bad review if you bought it from a platform like Amazon.

Maybe they aren't doing anything illegal, but you can still rate them if the product is different from what you expected.

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#55

Post by gregmac »

chc wrote: post #30
gregmac wrote: post #22

This is the Philips controller software (app) that is refusing to talk to or control 3rd party light bulbs. I don't really see this as being a problem. It's not the nicest thing, perhaps, but neither is 3rd party companies building bulbs (presumably by ripping off the design and protocol of Philip's bulbs), and then relying on Philips to build the software so they can actually be used. In other words, Philips is refu…

I don't see how you can say that this is both "not a problem" and "why you shouldn't buy into closed, walled-garden products." Best I can tell, the thing Philips did here that people are objecting to is turning Philips Hue into a walled garden where before it was not. So if this is an example of why you shouldn't buy into closed, walled-garden products, then it sounds like this product's owners have a legitimate prob…

I unfortunately don't know the entire history here, but it really comes down to what was purchased.

If Philips sold the Philips Hue hub as a generic controller for all Zigbee lights, then yeah, I'd agree: they essentially did a bait-and-switch after purchase, and this is totally wrong. Like class-action lawsuit wrong.

If they sold it as a controller for Philips bulbs without mentioning Zigbee interoperability, then it's customer-hostile, to be sure, but not necessarily wrong, in my eyes.

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#56

Post by detaro »

bitwize wrote: post #28
jcromartie wrote: post #20

Are 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.

No, technically the third-party manufacturers were in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a federal offense with penalties up to five years in prison. From Philips' perspective, refusing to cooperate with those criminally infringing their IP is a feature, not a bug.

Given that the protocol is a standard by the Zigbee Alliance (Light Link), I doubt that implementing it causes a DMCA violation. Unless you are claiming all companies making compliant products stole Philips code to do so?

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#57

Post by cryo »

bprater wrote: post #16
rythie wrote: post #6

Surely 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.

https://www.dresden-elektronik.de/funktechnik/solutions/wire...

This one works with Raspberry Pi 1 and 2 (not zero)

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#58

Post by tomlongson »

jcromartie wrote: post #20

Are 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.

A more direct way of hitting their sales is to write a review.

Philips Hue Hub (4.5/5 stars currently): http://www.amazon.com/Philips-426353-Personal-Wireless-Light...

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#59

Post by xsmasher »

gregmac wrote: post #22

This is the Philips controller software (app) that is refusing to talk to or control 3rd party light bulbs. I don't really see this as being a problem. It's not the nicest thing, perhaps, but neither is 3rd party companies building bulbs (presumably by ripping off the design and protocol of Philip's bulbs), and then relying on Philips to build the software so they can actually be used. In other words, Philips is refu…

It looks like this was an update to the software in the Hue bridge? So people who THOUGHT they were buying a zigbee-based bridge now find that many zigbee products can no longer be paired with it.

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#60

Post by wvenable »

gregmac wrote: post #48
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fix…

I never understood the desire to control lights without using a wall switch. I say this having had X10 and later Insteon installations in 3 different houses over the past 10 years. Even today, I have the ability to control nearly all the lights on the main floor of my house with an app on my phone. I actually use this feature maybe once or twice a year, being generous. Even if my phone is on me and already unlocked (…

I bought some bulbs to create a light alarm -- automatic wake up by slowing increasing the light in the room (and nice soft coloring too). I actually use the wall switch to turn them off an on the rest of the time.

I might get some more bulbs (mi.light) if I start finding more uses but for now it seems pretty niche.

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