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Philips Hue will soon force users to create an account
331–338 of 338 posts
Re: Philips Hue will soon force users to create an account
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being able to remotely make sure the coffee machine isn't powered is the true game changer. Having the lights turn off automatically when there's nobody home is also nice though.
Coffeemakers usually turn themselves off? My $12 one does.
There's an EU law that actually dictates that all coffee machines should turn off.
But I still don't trust it. I need to do the Japanese train conductor pointing and vocalising thing when turning stuff off when I leave the house for a longer time =)
Re: Philips Hue will soon force users to create an account
#333Imagine having to create an account to use a lightbulb. It's all gone too far.
Yes. When you take a step back and consider this exact statement, it's utter insanity.
It reminds me of the transition of dumb phones where we would transfer files to one another using direct Bluetooth. Then the era of cloud storage came and you would upload to the cloud to transfer to someone next to you. Then we reinvented sending to the device next to you with things like AirDrop and Nearby Share but alas they’re not interoperable.
Re: Philips Hue will soon force users to create an account
#334I have noticed the announcement of the change too. This materially changes the product for me. I was a happy user so far, and was thinking about buying more bulbs in fact, but not anymore. Is there a way to force the company to return the money I have paid for my bulbs and hub so far? Even if it is arduous and cost me more money than I'm able to gain back I would be inclined to do it to signal my displeasure with thi…
I'm going to RMA my lightbulb if it stops working because I haven't logged in.
Re: Philips Hue will soon force users to create an account
#335Most (almost all?) Philips Hue devices are standard Zigbee devices. Chuck out your Philips gateway and replace it with a Raspberry Pi, Home Assistant and a Zigbee stick. Yeah, it's a bit more work, but if you're reading Hacker News you probably already know how to do this anyways, and honestly, Home Assistant is pretty damn good at staying hands-off. (I only update it every few months, it's on a battery backup in my…
I ordered a Zigbee usb stick right after reading the blog. It came in the mail yesterday. It took me 2 hours to install and configure zigbee2mqtt (I already had mosquitto mqtt server and home assistant installed). As I deleted my HUE and innr bulbs out the HUE app, they started showing up in the zigbee2mqtt panel, and awesomely also right in Home Assistant. I renamed the entities to what they had been before and am fully online without the hue bridge or the huge app. I deleted the hue app right after this and threw the hue bridge in the trash.
Re: Philips Hue will soon force users to create an account
#336This is frustrating. I have invested a lot in the Hue ecosystem and have also recommended it to my friends based on the facts that you don't need an account to control it, it integrates easily with HA, and you can block it from the internet. Now after one announcement it's something I want to get rid of fast and am ashamed of recommending it to my friends. I already block my Hue Bridge from accessing the internet, so…
I can recommend this: https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/
You can keep your Hue bulbs and devices but threw away the app, hub, and need to work with hue as an institution at all.
I got a $30 USB zigbee stick to replace the hub. works great!
Re: Philips Hue will soon force users to create an account
#337I'm surprised they didn't already require this, but I think it's probably safe to say it was a likely and foreseeable outcome in any case. That, combined with a dearth of use cases that made sense (for my life) is what's kept me from using these products. About the only reason I could think of to buy smart lightbulbs would be to suddenly turn all the lights in the house red, and yell "torpedoes in the water, brace fo…
Use cases that I personally like:
* Turn existing lights into timed night lights that turn on at a configurable brightness when I pass certain motions sensors and then turn off after a timeout (cool/useful when I'm wandering around house at night)
* Similar: Turn existing light fixtures into motion activated on switches (useful for dark staircase)
* Turn lights on in morning and evening when I'm traveling to make it look like the place is occupied if I'm traveling
* Party mode: cool colors shifting in cool ways in the rare event there's a party
* Gradually go from bright white light to softer light as the day goes on in the office, and then stay soft at night to help with sleep
* Turn on in a sequence when people are detected close by outside in the middle of the night to try to scare them off
* Turn a certain color to indicate something being off, like a server offline, water detected, etc.
Re: Philips Hue will soon force users to create an account
#338UBIK. read it.
What's the link between a story about psychic power and the nature of reality and the need to create an account to control light bulbs?
company trade secrets/pay per use. Book had an ancillary gripe about "nickle and diming" (americanism, think "death by 1000 financial papercuts). A subtext to the entire engagement is that everything is implicitly rented. Here's a non-spoiler quote which (if i recall the book correctly) occurs within the first chapter:
“The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.” He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. "
^ That door, was "the main character's front door"
IoT.
edit: grammar