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Philips Hue Bridge v1 online services will be shut off after April 2020

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11–20 of 153 posts

Re: Philips Hue Bridge v1 online services will be shut off after April 2020

#11
post #3

This is exactly the reason why the Twitter account "internet of shit" was created. Yes I know it's vulgar. https://twitter.com/internetofshit?lang=en But it's worth scrolling through the previous posts by that account to see a myriad of similar "your expensive internet-dependent thing is now useless" scenarios.

[REDACTED]

Agree with child comment.

Re: Philips Hue Bridge v1 online services will be shut off after April 2020

#12
post #6

Well - they've done a pretty good job of ensuring that if I get smart lights again, I'm definitely not buying Philips. This change breaks all the digital assistant integrations ("Hey Google, turn on the lights"), which is pretty much the only reason to have smart lights in the first place. If you can't use voice commands, you might as well just use the wall switches. Who wants to pull out their phone and switch the l…

Is there a viable alternative? The website and app are pretty terrible. I assume it's because they have no real competition?

Re: Philips Hue Bridge v1 online services will be shut off after April 2020

#14
post #10
post #5

This forced obsolescence is beginning to get out of hand. I completely understand that running the online portion of this costs money, but that needs factoring in to the business model from the start. I imagine that they didn't think about this when the product first launched in 2012. I do wonder if a u-turn (similar to the one Sonos has just done) will follow after bad media coverage.

Or maybe they factored in 8 years worth of service?

They market their bulbs as having a 15 year life span.

Re: Philips Hue Bridge v1 online services will be shut off after April 2020

#16
post #8
post #6

Well - they've done a pretty good job of ensuring that if I get smart lights again, I'm definitely not buying Philips. This change breaks all the digital assistant integrations ("Hey Google, turn on the lights"), which is pretty much the only reason to have smart lights in the first place. If you can't use voice commands, you might as well just use the wall switches. Who wants to pull out their phone and switch the l…

>> this change breaks all the digital assistant integrations Don't know about Google but this is not true for Siri/HomeKit integration, which doesn't use any of the Hue online services.

Siri/HomeKit was never supported on the Hue Bridge v1, only on the current v2 bridge.

Re: Philips Hue Bridge v1 online services will be shut off after April 2020

#18
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe they factored in 8 years worth of service?

They market their bulbs as having a 15 year life span.

The bridge will still work from your private network and one can still control the lights with the app.

All that's being disabled is the external control.

Re: Philips Hue Bridge v1 online services will be shut off after April 2020

#20
post #4

This is abominable, there's literally no reason other than "It costs money to maintain this, and we'd rather make money selling new stuff than support what we already made". I have a v2 bridge, but back when I bought it about 3 1/2 years back, I payed a lot of money for it. It's not an expensive product to manufacture, so I expected that money to go towards supporting it long term. So much for that.

You paid a lot of money for the bridge? It comes with the starter packs? I know a few people with these systems that have v2 bridges piled up at home as it was cheaper to get the starter kits and a bonus bridge than it was to buy the bulbs individually.
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