To control your lights you soon need to create an account and share your data with the Hue cloud.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/5717757

Today’s story is about Philips Hue by Signify. They will soon start forcing accounts on all users and upload user data to their cloud. For now, Signify says you’ll still be able to control your Hue lights locally as you’re currently used to, but we don’t know if this may change in the future. The privacy policy allows them to store the data and share it with partners.

  • Gork@lemm.eeEnglish
    1121·
    11 months ago

    Ooh I can’t wait for the new Philips Hue® lighting monthly subscription service, where with a low fee we can access all of our standard lighting IOT with the basic subscription plan and colored lighting with the premium subscription!

    Let the enshittification begin.

    • cheery_coffee@lemmy.caEnglish
      37·
      11 months ago

      But now you’ll never be able to set your room to Baby Yoda Green, Mando Mauve, or New England Patriots Nautical Blue during the big game!

      Show your support for your teams and favourite characters, for only $4.99 a month, or $59 a year (a generous savings)!

      Premium members can link their Disney+, Xbox, and Spotify accounts for $9.99 a month.

      Don’t forget to light up your feed with our new vibrant social media section!

      • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
        6·
        11 months ago

        Folks who don’t owe Hue might not realize how close to home this hits. They have a bunch of official Star Wars shit in their Hue Labs area.

      • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        8·
        11 months ago

        They could also have lootboxes you could buy with HueCoins, a new and shiny blockchain backed in-game currency. From the boxes you would get different colors you could use to decorate your home with. Then you could also use the existing colors to craft new ones. If the RNG wasn’t in your favor, you could just buy the colors you want. It’s a win-win for everyone!

        Every day you log in, you get a free lootbox shard, and when you have 3 shard, you can craft a lootbox for free. With a higher login streak, you get more shards too.

          • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            2·
            10 months ago

            Oh, we’re just getting warmed up here. Didn’t even mention the system of upgrading HueCoins to different tiers, decaying crafting materials, convoluted system of currencies in each tier, upgrading lootboxes, upgrading the RNG etc.

        • HughJanus@lemmy.mlEnglish
          4·
          11 months ago

          I tried to play this game yesterday. Guess what? Requires you to sign into a MS account to even start the game. I don’t wanna live on this planet anymore.

    • Cort@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      11 months ago

      I think they’ll start with: pay us or it’s lights out. Then walk it back to something that sounds slightly more reasonable.

  • Danny M@lemmy.escapebigtech.infoEnglish
    59·
    11 months ago

    You don’t understand, your lights need to track you, how else are they going to improve your user experience? Using lights is so complicated that it requires them to train AI models to better understand the necessities of users. The methods that have worked for hundreds of years cannot work with today’s users

    • dansity@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      10·
      11 months ago

      I’m pretty sure basic usage statistics were updloaded previously as well without an account. Now they want you to login, give jucy permissions on your phone and upload all the “usage” data … for security.

    • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
      4·
      11 months ago

      Hue has this thing called Hue Labs and it’s the shittiest UX ever. It’s an internal browser in the Hue app to add special things like color changing patterns. In Hue Labs it is about 25% useful features you’d want in the app (things like triggering a routine with a Hue button), 25% fun things you’d want in the app (like color gradients), and 50% of the wackiest shit you’ve ever heard of. Seriously there’s a damn officially Star Wars force game in there or something? I just want to make my lights be spooky and change colors.

      And I really cannot overstate how shitty the UX is for it. Compare it to Lifx where you just tap the color gradients you want and it’s on. You have to add the thing to your account, then make one for each color combo, it’s insane.

  • ZC3rr0r@lemmy.caEnglish
    53·
    11 months ago

    Well, look who’s looking like an idiot for setting up my entire house with Hue lights recently after running two bulbs with local control for years… sigh it’s getting mighty frustrating having to deal with companies hoarding your data.

      • ZC3rr0r@lemmy.caEnglish
        24·
        11 months ago

        Yeah, I’ll look into that. It’s just a shame to have to do extra work and spend extra money because a company decides to screw you over after your purchase.

      • AllegedlyInsane@lemmy.mlEnglish
        10·
        11 months ago

        They do, that’s how I control mine. They haven’t been connected to a hurricane bridge in over a year at this point

    • ghostinthemachine@programming.devEnglish
      14·
      11 months ago

      Just listened to the audibook version of this not that long ago. This is the kind of shit they should be teaching people about in school now.

  • airman@infosec.pubEnglish
    40·
    11 months ago

    This was the final push I needed to switch over to Home Assistant and their hub. I needed a simple plug and play solution and Green delivered.

    Migrates the lights, curtains, and will migrate more.

    Fuck proprietary hubs and technology, and fuck me for buying into that shit in the first place.

    Open source Matter/Zigbee/Zwave when?

    • commandar@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      11 months ago

      The HA SkyConnect does Zigbee and will eventually add Matter support. Z-wave needs a separate dongle, though.

      I’ve literally been in the process of migrating all my Home Automation from SmartThings to HA over the past couple of weeks. I have a mix of Zigbee, Z-wave, and WiFi devices. The HA side has honestly been easier to set up than SmartThings was in the first place.

      I’ve also been working on getting some cameras set up with Frigate and Coral object recognition. That part has been more involved, but I’m pretty happy with the functionality so far.

      I’ve definitely been happy with my decision years ago to stick to devices using standard local protocols. Has made the whole process far less painful than it could have been.

      Funny enough, one of the few things I have that uses a proprietary hub/app are my Hue bulbs – they were my first dip into home automation a decade ago. I haven’t ditched the Hue hub quite yet, but moves like this definitely make me more inclined to.

      • airman@infosec.pubEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        This is extremely informative. Yes, I got the SkyConnect and it’s working flawlessly.

        I meant I wish we can see a FOSS alternative to these propriety standards.

        Same here tho. I started with Hue and now I’ll just keep their lights fuck their hubs and accounts and cloud.

        Going forward I’ll buy whatever as long as it satisfies what I need and connects to HA Green.

        FOSS for the absolute win!

  • Thales@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    401·
    11 months ago

    Remember, just a few years ago when the latestagecapitalism sub was created and everybody was like ha ha you lefties, and now every single big corporation is self immolating in 2023… good times!

    • SaltySalamander@kbin.social
      4·
      11 months ago

      and now every single big corporation is self immolating in 2023

      The overwhelming majority of people simply do not care. So no, they’re not self-immolating. They understand that people don’t give two shits.

    • be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social
      51·
      11 months ago

      and now every single big corporation is self immolating in 2023

      I think that’s overstating it a smidge. I don’t see there being much impact for many of these companies beyond schadenfreude for those of us watching. Twitter’s going to die, but since Musk obviously doesn’t care it takes a lot of the satisfaction from it. Most of these others - I doubt it’s more than a blip.

      Not that I don’t agree with and cheer for your overall point. I just don’t think most of this is moving the needle in any direction.

  • MrBusinessMan@lemm.eeEnglish
    35·
    11 months ago

    This is a great innovation by Phillips, and it follows rule 8 from my best selling business book, “12 rules for business”.

    Rule 8: The business is always right - never give customers a choice when you can dictate the terms to them instead.

  • Whiskeyomega@kbin.social
    26·
    11 months ago

    Its actually illegal under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 in the UK for a product to force a change on its functionality after you bought it.
    Also surprised if EU law will allow this ?
    I for one will be seeking a refund for the products either directly or through a court just to show them up.

    Update Note Showing Consumer Rights Act 2015 “Goods Not Fit For Purpose” alone is enough to demand your money back. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/section/10
    and as it relies on digital content to support them and this is where the main problem is, section 40 applies where they changed it for the worse
    https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/section/40

    • Imotali@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      11 months ago

      Also, pretty sure it’s illegal in California to under CCPA, but there they could just turn off the lights. Which is why CCPA needs change in functionality clauses.

    • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.eeEnglish
      12·
      11 months ago

      Can’t Hue just turn off everyone’s lights in the EU if the law doesn’t allow this change in terms of service?

  • spudwart@spudwart.comEnglish
    272·
    11 months ago

    It was potential decisions like this that made me stop using various IoT devices in my life.

    And year after year, i am proven right.

    • TwistedTurtle@monero.townEnglish
      27·
      11 months ago

      With Home Assistant and locally controlled devices there’s no issues whatsoever. Completely locally controlled and solid as a rock ime.

      • ratman150@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        7·
        11 months ago

        Once I heard this news I finally took the plunge on home assistant.

        Been a learning curve but absolutely worth it, so much better than the first party control solutions.

      • Copernican@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        11 months ago

        I wish I could get there. It works 90% of the time. I can’t figure out what is going on between Zigbee2MQTT and actually updating state. One every week or two I need to reboot the Raspberry Pi to resolve issues. Definitely more reliable than the cloud, but I am not sure what is going on.

        • CodingSquirrel@kbin.social
          4·
          11 months ago

          True, but thankfully there are a lot of choices in that space, and it’s constantly growing. And if there aren’t, a lot of times it’s possible to make one (or buy someone’s) using an esp32 or similar. Zigbee, zwave, and matter devices should all be possible to run local only.

  • Swim@lemmy.caEnglish
    17·
    11 months ago

    so glad i saw this. ive been strongly considering getting a hue setup,but not after this news

  • osanuha@lemmy.worldEnglish
    14·
    11 months ago

    I have an adblocker for my home connection. By far, Hue subdomains are the most common blocked ones.

    Philips Hue sends data to servers every few minutes.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Is it that chatty because it keeps trying because you block it and it retries a lot?

      It’d still be calling home without it, but maybe not as much as it seems?

      • osanuha@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        Not necessarily. Sometimes I turn off the adblocker for days and still have the requests when turning it back.

  • Smokeydope@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2312·
    11 months ago

    Look guys I know you like your smart bulbs and your smart fridge and your smart mirror and your smart toilet paper but maybe MAYBE the inconvienence of having to get up and turn something on with a physical button and not having it connect to your phone is worth the freedom of knowing you haven’t and cannot be datacucked by every company that produces your stuff. Throw your bluetooth connected garbage in the trash and stop thinking that controlling home automation stuff with your spyware phone is cool.

      • Smokeydope@lemmy.worldEnglish
        74·
        11 months ago

        The average person just isn’t tech savy enough to locally host. Its easy to tell people to just host stuff themselves but its a lot of added complexity and maintenance responsibility that most just don’t want to deal with. I agree that it would be best if everyone just locally hosted all their services but we live in the real world where the average joe schmo is either too uneducated or busy with their life dramas to learn computer networking or just plain ol’ lazy and indifferent to giving up personal privacy as long as they can change RGB lighting with a phone app they are happy as peaches.

      • tinkeringidiot@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        11 months ago

        That’s not the easy way, though. People go for home automation in the first place to make something easy. Getting some awful proprietary spyware doodad to work with HomeAssistant is usually not the “just works” experience they’re looking for.

    • Rodeo@lemmy.caEnglish
      8·
      11 months ago

      My neighbor bought a wifi enable rat trap the other day. It notifies her when it’s been triggered and send a picture of the cage.

      A fucking rat trap and she felt the need to spend and extra $40 just so she can share her rat infestation data.

      • Smokeydope@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        11 months ago

        Its important to know exactly when the rats neck gets snapped with screenshots and the exact velocity trajectory of the spring charted on a data plot, otherwise how else would you for sure the trap got the rat at maximum efficency?

        • Restaldt@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5·
          11 months ago

          Often not how traps work

          Usually it catches a limb or tail and then the rat either starves or chews off whatever got trapped

          Being notified when it goes off you could go check right away to release the rodent elsewhere (or quickly kill it if releasing its not your thing)

          • Rodeo@lemmy.caEnglish
            1·
            11 months ago

            This was an electric one. Plugs into the wall and shocks them dead when they walk on it. Quite clean actually, not sure how humane it’s supposed to be though.

    • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
      7·
      11 months ago

      I had buttons for lights in my room as early as 1999 and I’m sure they existed before that. Also, the clapper exists lol. We don’t have to resort to a light switch like cavemen!

    • dirthawker0@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      I had to replace both my clothes washer and dishwasher in the past 6 months (19 and 22 years old respectively) and the clothes washer can connect to Wifi so I guess you can get notified that the cycle is done through their app. That feature will never get turned on. As for the dishwasher I bought the model that didn’t have Wifi. I mean yeah it’s cool we’re in the Jetsons world but the convenience you get isn’t really worth getting your information sold to everyone who wants to sell you an appliance.

  • just another dev@lemmy.my-box.devEnglish
    10·
    11 months ago

    The app rating in Google is currently 4.5 stars. I did my part in leaving a review, and got a nice “As our features grow…” pasta reply.

    Edit: I’ve also downgraded the app to version 4.38 and disabled auto updates (both for the app and the firmware), and asked my housemate to do the same. That should keep things working for now.