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Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

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Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#261

Post by gambiting »

jzwinck wrote: post #247
RightWingRabble wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wireless shifting. It's supposed to save us from the tyranny of the shift cable.

Actually no--the Shimano and Campagnolo systems (the first two to market, and the only ones anyone really has yet except some pros) are wired. Look up "Shimano Di2." The battery lasts about 1000 miles before it needs to be recharged, and it can be charged via USB.

To be fair, it's the same as top of the range sports cars having automatic transmissions(like Bugatti Veyron). Top of the range automatics are just faster than any human could possibly be, so they are a natural choice at that level. From what I understand, all professional cyclists use electronic shifters because they are more precise and faster - one click always means one gear, while with a manual sometimes you can miss a gear or jump two at once.

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#262

Post by tdkl »

lostlogin wrote: post #257
cgriswald wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a less-than-a-year old iPhone 6+ that runs like a legless alligator ever since I upgraded to iOS 9. Your first gen iPad isn't supported by iOS 9 and there are a lot of apps that don't support it either. But backward compatibility does not preclude Apple from being an upgrade company. Apple may not have invented the hardware upgrade cycle, but they've mastered it. That's what their keynotes and media interactio…

Something must be wrong with it then. My 5s runs great on most recent release. It's axtually better than when I bought it. How many devices get better as they age?

iOS 9 introduced stutters in scrolling performance compared to iOS 8. If you're not sensitive enough to 60fps, you don't notice it. But that silky 60fps animations were the reason why iOS was praised in the first place.

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#263

Post by on_and_off »

timothyb89 wrote: post #236
on_and_off wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only recommend you not to buy LIFX bulbs. I have one and it has been widely unreliable from day one. It does not default to on when you use the light switch, so you always have to use the app to interact with it. Half the time, the app fails to detect it. The rest of the time, it can take random amounts of time for it to respond. It also likes to randomly light up red in the middle of the night or to flicker ve…

Bulb detection used to be a big frustration for me as well, but they've 100% resolved my issues with it in the latest firmware update (now a few months old). I'd previously had issues with detection after power-on since WiFi would take ages to connect, but now its down to a pretty impressive 5-6 seconds from cold start and is far more reliable. Random color changes or flickering sounds like a defective bulb, I'm sure…

maybe they have corrected it in an ulterior hardware/software revision, I have the Kickstarter version and judging from the comments at that time it was at least a widespread issue.

I am not really willing to throw more money their way though.

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#264

Post by bufferout »

odbol wrote: post #200
thescriptkiddie wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too. Hue gear is absurdly expensive, but I was sold right up until this. To make matters worse, it looks like the apps I wanted to use the bulbs with (sleep as android, f.lux) only work with the Phillips hub. I hope the developers of those apps use this as an opportunity to learn about the dangers of vendor lock-in. This is just the FTDI debacle all over again.

If only there was other bridge hardware that could communicate in a more open manner. Unfortunately, Hue is one of the only companies that even OFFERS an SDK—most other systems are completely closed down.

https://github.com/LIFX

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#265

Post by throwaway7767 »

gknoy wrote: post #241
gherkin0 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when your batteries inevitably die out on the trail and you're stuck in some random gear, you'll bless the day you bought into this ~ innovation ~.

I'd be surprised if they didn't recharge it by pedaling. ;)

> I'd be surprised if they didn't recharge it by pedaling. ;)

I'd be surprised if they did. A dynamo adds a noticeable load on the bike, and the people buying this are already optimising for small improvements. Adding a dynamo to power it would probably be a net negative for performance.

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#266

Post by microtonal »

pmontra wrote: post #253
MrZongle2 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not shown: the part where the Hue consumer product line takes a nose dive, resulting in an organizational shuffling, the loss of some jobs, and general agony and frustration on the part of everybody in the division except for the Boss, who moves on to another position because he/she was able to demonstrate how they squeezed profit out of the product.

Also not shown: when the current hub technology is discontinued and replaced with something newer and better and incompatible and you need to replace all the lights in your house unless you want to stick forever with the old hub. Ops, new lights and other stuff that talks with the hub won't work with the old one so you hope you'll never need anything new anymore. Probably not something somebody in this kind of things…

FYI: it uses the ZigBee standard, so it is likely that it will always be compatible with some third-party hubs and lights. I also expect that newer iterations of the standard will have backwards compatibility.

That makes this choice of Philips worse: they implement a standard, but then choose to ignore devices based on (probably) identifiers (and probably introducing incompatibilities). It's toxic to the whole ecosystem.

I think that some of their marketing material stated that they were ZigBee-compatible. So, I guess I can now (theoretically) sue them as a customer.

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#267

Post by lazyjones »

cbsmith wrote: post #99
roymurdock wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boss: We introduced Hue back in 2012 w/ a plan to lose money the first 3 years developing the hub, subsidizing partners, and getting our product out in the market. Tell me we're seeing a positive ROI now. Hue PM: Hue is profitable, but only marginally so. Our strategy of making up the initial investment on $60 per bulb hardware is being undermined by cheap 3rd party lighting fixtures. Plus we're incurring costs respo…

That doesn't seem like a fair view of the analysis. If the real value was in the hub, and these other lights were getting a free ride on it, then the opportunity would be to charge more for the hub. What is far more likely to be the case is that the support costs around problems caused by random third party components messing with the Zigbee network were exceeding the value of providing that support, particularly whe…

> What is far more likely to be the case is that the support costs around problems caused by random third party components messing with the Zigbee network were exceeding the value of providing that support

I'm amazed at the level of belief in Philips' honest motives after such a move. They just saw a large market of 3rd party bulbs emerging and saw potential profits for themselves, that's the most likely explanation with the available information. If anyone has financial details to back up claims of "need" for such a move by Philips, please provide them.

Philips has been investigated and fined for antitrust violations repeatedly. They don't really deserve benefits of doubt regarding predatory/unfair business practices without need at this point.

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#268

Post by mcv »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #256
gherkin0 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a total dick move on Philips's part to "update" incompatibility into existing products that people already own and have spend money and effort to integrate. These people bought product with the expectation of compatibility, now they're out their investment because of Philips's selfish business decision. Even they have elevated support costs, Philips's made their bed by offering compatibility in the first place f…

wonder if that is open to a class-action suit.

I would think so, but then again, I also thought the class action suit against Sony's removal of OtherOS on the PS3 would have been a slam dunk. This is no different: the removal of a popular feature well after purchase.

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#269

Post by tdkl »

enraged_camel wrote: post #118
usaphp wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that one company who gets majority of revenue from hardware I hope you are not referring to Apple, because compared to other companies , iPhones and iPads are the one who can run current software on older devices with almost no issues. Samsung and other android manufacturers on the other hand have not supported older devices at all until recently (and even now not as good as Apple does). My first gen iPad still run…

Yep. I have an iPhone 4S that still works great. Granted, iOS 9 is a bit slow, but that's to be expected. It's much better than my 4-year-old PC, which can barely handle today's games, for instance.

Your 4 years old PC can render the UI on Windows fine though. When did you have to buy a new more powerful GPU for newer OS to work as it was before?

See difference between iOS 8 and 9, who introduced stuttering in two and one year old devices.

Re: Philips Hue blocks 3rd party lights

#270

Post by tdkl »

lsc wrote: post #217
tdkl wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll never understand why companies make such customer hostile decisions. Because they can. John Doe will think "oh, I just need to shell out some money to get it working again", or "oh, the system needed an upgrade anyway". The mobile bonanza (well, that one company who gets majority of revenue from hardware) in last couple of years perverted the word "upgrade" from "a software upgrade, which adds new features and…

>The mobile bonanza (well, that one company who gets majority of revenue from hardware) in last couple of years perverted the word "upgrade" from "a software upgrade, which adds new features and ads value to existing purchased product", to "needing to buy a new device to keep on going with existing performance". I'm happy to see this hasn't spread to the desktop PC. Yet. I can't tell if you are joking, honestly. If y…

You can't convince me that worsening the experience on a device in 30 minutes (time for OTA update to finish) is to be expected. Example: iOS 9 update.

Although I don't agree with many practices MS does lately, I'll admit that they're doing a good job with Windows performance being better and/or at least not worse.

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