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Philips reverses decision to close the Hue Platform

developers.meethue.com

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Re: Philips reverses decision to close the Hue Platform

#121

Post by SixSigma »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #43

Compare this with Ethernet. You plug it in - and it just works. No 3com/Realtek/Intel certification required. As a user I may be shielded, but I believe there are no interoperability issues between Cisco/Juniper/Brocade switchgear either. With this as the background, it's surprising to see a large crowd defending the equivalent of Ford-branded gasoline.

Or you can have your Ethernet equipment certified as Carrier Ethernet

https://www.mef.net/certification/equipment-certification-ov...

Re: Philips reverses decision to close the Hue Platform

#122

Post by jasonkostempski »

culturestate wrote: post #31
mdip wrote: post #24

A point brought up in the replies to their forum post warrants repeating: They claim that they were concerned about the quality of their brand being eroded by third-party bulbs that didn't reproduce the same quality experience that first-party/certified bulbs did. They had the solution available to them from day one. Since they can clearly identify third-party bulbs, they could have simply presented a warning along t…

I don't think this would accomplish anything vis-a-vis brand protection, since consumers have been conditioned to just click "OK" at every dialog box that doesn't look like it will explode a mine. Six months down the line, nobody would remember the warning -- they'd still get mad at Philips when a third-party bulb breaks.

They could make the dialog look like it will explode a mine. I'm not sure if the software can know when something isn't working but if it does and the last know bulb was a third-party bulb it could then remind you about it.

Re: Philips reverses decision to close the Hue Platform

#123

Post by mdip »

supergeek133 wrote: post #117
mdip wrote: post #24

A point brought up in the replies to their forum post warrants repeating: They claim that they were concerned about the quality of their brand being eroded by third-party bulbs that didn't reproduce the same quality experience that first-party/certified bulbs did. They had the solution available to them from day one. Since they can clearly identify third-party bulbs, they could have simply presented a warning along t…

The average consumer would blame philips for even allowing the bulbs... people on HN or various other tech circles know better. But do you know who leaves reviews on Amazon and calls their customer support line? The average consumer. And most companies usually pay per call/minute to their customer care contractors.

If by average consumer you are referring to "average purchaser of light bulbs", you are referring to a market that the Philips Hue products are not yet in.

The average Philips Hue customer is an early adopter who was willing to spend a large amount of money on a next-generation lighting system. This customer is an early adopter.

The question is not whether they should allow third-party bulbs, they already allowed third-party bulbs. The question is whether, after reaping the benefits of creating a product with compatibility built in, if it is a good business move to remove that feature via a software update.

People flipped out when their paid-for Kindle copy of 1984 was removed from their e-reader due to legal issues that were out of Amazon's control. And those customers were refunded. They chose to break the lighting of their customers due to user experience issues.

Re: Philips reverses decision to close the Hue Platform

#124

Post by jakobegger »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #36
culturestate wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this would accomplish anything vis-a-vis brand protection, since consumers have been conditioned to just click "OK" at every dialog box that doesn't look like it will explode a mine. Six months down the line, nobody would remember the warning -- they'd still get mad at Philips when a third-party bulb breaks.

> they'd still get mad at Philips when a third-party bulb breaks. Would they? Wouldn't they blame their bulb first? It's like complaining to your PC manufacturer that a program you downloaded doesn't work. Most people would blame the program and look for another one. I'm sure there are some who have it backwards, and they probably will be calling support, but I can't imagine there's enough of them for a company to ac…

People install all kinds of crap on their computer, forget about it, and later on don't make the connection that the outdated kernel extension they installed is crashing their machine.

(I speak from experience. I was able to track a surprising number of bug reports in my apps to internet filters, kernel extensions, etc. It's so common that it's the one of the first questions I ask customers when they report a bug. And it's why sandobexed apps are so successful -- all of the sudden you can install apps without worrying that they'll break your computer)

Re: Philips reverses decision to close the Hue Platform

#125

Post by yourapostasy »

jads wrote: post #71
TeMPOraL wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they'd still get mad at Philips when a third-party bulb breaks. Would they? Wouldn't they blame their bulb first? It's like complaining to your PC manufacturer that a program you downloaded doesn't work. Most people would blame the program and look for another one. I'm sure there are some who have it backwards, and they probably will be calling support, but I can't imagine there's enough of them for a company to ac…

I've worked in tech support for many years, and the vast majority of people would blame the PC manufacturer or the operating system for the problems. I spent many years on the Genius Bar (back in the PowerPC and early Intel days) and, in almost, every interaction, the device was to blame - as far as the customer was concerned. In some cases, they were right, in others it was due to outdated software, buggy third-part…

Speak with tech support for other vendors enough, and the same picture emerges. As computers and software take on a greater utility role with more users, this is likely to be expected.

Steve Jobs' early instinct to deliver a walled garden experience to consumers was correct. My guess is we'll see a widening bifurcation of the market, where consumers go ever-deeper into a walled garden, while professionals/commercial purchasers pay much higher price points for more accessible, manipulable gear. Once the complexity of some commercial gear reaches a certain threshold of support costs however, I expect that gear will head towards black box, closed designs. Maturing the software we write so it tames the complexity and makes managing it fun/ego-engaging in some manner could go a long ways towards pushing back that trend (if it emerges in the way I think it will).

Re: Philips reverses decision to close the Hue Platform

#126

Post by lightbritefight »

mdip wrote: post #123
supergeek133 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average consumer would blame philips for even allowing the bulbs... people on HN or various other tech circles know better. But do you know who leaves reviews on Amazon and calls their customer support line? The average consumer. And most companies usually pay per call/minute to their customer care contractors.

If by average consumer you are referring to "average purchaser of light bulbs", you are referring to a market that the Philips Hue products are not yet in. The average Philips Hue customer is an early adopter who was willing to spend a large amount of money on a next-generation lighting system. This customer is an early adopter. The question is not whether they should allow third-party bulbs, they already allowed thi…

Reminds me of the time Sony removed the "other OS" option from the PS3 that let you load Linux. A feature that had in use for years, and was a selling point for the more hardcore computer nerd. The stated reason they removed it was to prevent "evil hackers" from using it to remove DRM from their games. So three years after release, away it goes.

That move got the hardware hackers attention, and the PS3 copy protection was cracked in 3 weeks.

Hubris, meet Nemisis.

Re: Philips reverses decision to close the Hue Platform

#127

Post by rb2k_ »

rblatz wrote: post #81
TeMPOraL wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Badly coded driver is a special case, because it often crashes the system in a way seemingly unrelated to the installation itself (or software it came with), showing you a nasty blue screen (which is known generally as "the Windows problem"). I know most people get confused about cases like these (and had more than enough experience with fixing them for such people). But I used a different analogy on purpose. You bou…

The most popular alternative bulb is the GE Link bulb. Roughly the same price as the hue lux bulbs but brighter, and available in more stores (in my experience.)

And to spare some people the search:

Usually $20 for the Philips vs $15 for the GE Link at 800 vs 750 Lumen :)

I only have the colored Hue lights and the white GE Link so far. I might buy a Lux just to see how it works.

Re: Philips reverses decision to close the Hue Platform

#128

Post by bdavisx »

culturestate wrote: post #31
mdip wrote: post #24

A point brought up in the replies to their forum post warrants repeating: They claim that they were concerned about the quality of their brand being eroded by third-party bulbs that didn't reproduce the same quality experience that first-party/certified bulbs did. They had the solution available to them from day one. Since they can clearly identify third-party bulbs, they could have simply presented a warning along t…

I don't think this would accomplish anything vis-a-vis brand protection, since consumers have been conditioned to just click "OK" at every dialog box that doesn't look like it will explode a mine. Six months down the line, nobody would remember the warning -- they'd still get mad at Philips when a third-party bulb breaks.

If the software remembered that there was an off-brand bulb in the socket that went out, it could do a nicely worded "I told you so" to remind the consumer. The hub (I'm assuming this system has a hub or something) could keep track of the # of hours the bulbs have been in use, and report that the off-brand bulb only lasted 1/2x as long. Of course, if the off-brand bulbs were lasting 2x longer, then perhaps the hub should just keep it's mouth shut... :)

Re: Philips reverses decision to close the Hue Platform

#129

Post by lightbritefight »

sspiff wrote: post #38
gnulnx wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, give them some credit. They listened to their customers and responded very quickly.

Exactly this. Their management / decision makers aren't familiar with the hacker mindset, but they responded to public criticism quickly by acquiescing to the demands. I don't so anything bad about this. They mad a public about face, admitting that their decision was not the right one for their audience, and changed it. That's not easy to do for most people, let alone companies.

They didnt really admit the decision was bad for the audience. They said "well, we were just looking out for you, and highly recommend you doing what we want, but I guess you can do that too, but you shouldnt."

The tone is very much "we did nothing wrong." I don't expect more, but I was hoping for it.

Re: Philips reverses decision to close the Hue Platform

#130

Post by nitrogen »

kbutler wrote: post #112
golergka wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just do an XP fork for VM to run all the legacy stuff on and start fixing stuff already, damn! Oh yeah. I can just see "most people" powering up VMs to run their outdated broken software that they depend on. Why I'm sarcastic? Because the situation is completely broken, there's no right solution. All that's left is to ridicule all sides of the argument, because everyone who thinks that there is a way to make it rig…

The point is that the xp vm would be transparent. Microsoft has done various compatibility layers before - see windows on windows and windows on windows 64. The core question is how much isolation optimizes future development while maintaining the ability to run older applications.

That even already exists. You can run a built-in XP virtual machine on some newer editions of Windows, and I think it even has seamless windows.
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