Per the one tweet in the article that says they only bought one of these appliances because of the HA plugin: the lesson is don't buy smart devices that have cloud control. Whether or not they have local automation plugins (like HA), or just that have apps/cloud services, expecting those capabilities to remain for the life of the device is a fool's errand. We have a host of examples of cloud services being killed and…
Philips Hue did run locally, and now they are rolling out updates where a cloud account is required.
If you use HomeAssistant and have some Philips Hue equipment, you can pick up a $30 coordinator and you'll be in full control. It's a nice bonus that compatibility with other zigbee devices expands dramatically.
I got rid of my Hue Hub ages ago.