Technology

Ah yes to make your lights work, we need all your data. Stuff like this is why I don't have "smart" anything.

Edit: If this is actionable, I would be interested in participating in a class action suit against Philips for materially altering a product’s functionality after purchase. This is like buying a normal car and being told a year later it was given a remote update and now can only use Ford (tm) brand gasoline which costs $10/gallon.

If you do have an existing investment in Hue products, I suggest reaching out to them to request a refund because your purchase was made under a different policy, and this policy change is going to render your products useless without consent on your part. If they’re going to force a significant change that compromises the functionality of what might be hundreds of dollars worth of equipment without permitting recourse for legacy users, they should have to accept returns on what essentially is now a product you did not purchase and would not have purchased.

After they make the change, someone with an old Hue bulb should go to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Making this decision retroactive is clearly false advertising and anti-consumer. I don't really give a shit what their terms of use were.

They can do what they want with their future bulbs. The old ones need to be grandfathered in.

I bough a TP-Link smart bulb once. It was very nice - I could just download a "tp link bulb client" written for everyone by some third-party dude. If I wanted to, I could add a desktop shortcut to turn on/off the bulb.

Then TP-Link decided to automatically update the firmware of the bulb without my knowledge. The update turned off the REST API that made the third-party client to work. I could only use the shitty MOBILE app from then on.

The update was impossible to revert (though TP-Link said "Ok write to our support and we'll give you the downgrade file" no fuck you).

Ever since I've vowed to heavily think whether I want to buy a non-open-source firmware smart device ever again. Recently I bought a smart bulb and two smart sockets that come pre-flashed with "Tasmota" and "WLED" firmware out of the factory and they work great.

And I OWN them too

IoT stuff isn't safe to use unless it's flashed with a third-party Free Software firmware like Tasmota or ESPHome.

Thankfully, while I have a smart plug from them, I've made sure that it's a Zigbee powered one, meaning it's directly connected to my Home Assistant server over it's own frequency/protocol, no app required. Guess that choice is paying off now.

Also, someone should tell whoever is managing that Twitter support account that you should never use the phrase "We're sorry you feel that way", even when you're going for a non-apology.

Isn’t the “take it or leave it” approach to consent considered consent bundling? Didn’t google get fined for doing a similar thing?

Awesome timing, was about to add a whole lot of them to my new house, guess that ain’t happening

Start leaving 1 star reviews in the app stores from Google and Apple complaining about this.

They read those because stakeholders who understands nothing about tech only care for more stars.

I'm definitely starting to find a way out of hue and freezing my plans to buy more bulbs from them.

I was forced to move (landlord sold house) and when I got to my new place, I just never got around to setting up any of my smart home devices. Thermostat, cameras, lights, assistants, sensors, monitors, etc, and weirdly enough I am somehow happier now.

The random issues, glitches, delays between asking an assistant/pressing buttons before an action went through, fixing integrations, fixing Home Assistant, fixing random unpairs, etc. was driving me nuts. Especially when you have invested hundreds/thousands of dollars into premium devices.

Worst was when you'd ask assistant to do something, and it somehow misheard you and does something else. Fried an aquarium thermometer that way. Turned on ALL lights when everyone was sleeping, despite me asking to turn OFF a very specific light..

The only thing I truly miss is being able to turn off my bedroom light when I am in bed. But the stress I save is worth getting up and turning it off.

Companies these days: “help us think of products we can sell to procure data. No, we don’t care what the product is; we just want the data.”

reason: "your data isnt secure in your home, we need to control it. trust us. "

uh huh.

They're light bulbs. What data can they possibly hold on the users beyond how bright they like their bulbs.

This is immensely frustrating. Feels like a rug pull for anyone that cares about their data, privacy and (ironically) security.

Anyone have a good resource for connecting existing bulbs to zigbee and moving off the hue app?

Welp, their products are completely out of the running for our setup then.

Lutron FTW

If I use Home Assistant for control and block the Hue hub from the internet, will things keep functioning as they are today?

I like how my stuff works and don't want them to mess me up.

Home assistant should shield me from this right?

Huehuehue

Hue stuff sucks anyway. If you own a home or rent and have access to your breaker box, Lutron Caseta is a much better option.