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Lightbulb DRM: Philips Locks Purchasers Out of 3rd-Party Bulbs With New Firmware (techdirt.com)
sandbagger writes: Purchasers of the Philips Hue 'smart' ambient lighting system are finding out that the new firmware pushed out by the manufacturer has cut off access to previously-supported lightbulbs. Philips contends that this move will help their customers. A statement from the company reads in part: "While the Philips Hue system is based on open technologies we are not able to ensure all products from other brands are tested and fully interoperable with all of our software updates. For guaranteed compatibility you need to use Philips Hue or certified Friends of Hue products."
Keurig tried this crap and it didn't work out well for them.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
.
My first CD player (purchased in 1985) was a Philps (with a Magnavox nameplate). I've also purchased other Philips products since then.
I will no longer buy Philips products so long as they are aggressively DRM-happy.
Phillips have a very long history if making things as difficult as possible for everyone else. Going right back to their early TVs and radios.
I think Philips forgot the cardinal rule of technological trojan horses: make sure people are actually using your product BEFORE the dick lock-in moves.
Sounds like they're aiming to screw themselves out of the market entirely. Strip it all out of your house and send it back for a refund, buy products from a responsible company that isn't out to screw over their customer base.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
We can't guarantee other vendors' bulbs will work so we'll cut the users' suspense and make sure they wont.
Does this really surprise anyone? This is one of the primary features of most IoT type setups - you dont own what you have bought, you are just using a service, and therefore of course they feel free to redefine that service as they wish.
They here of course is not limited to Phillips, but people will continue to be surprised by this.
Until we see some (haha! yeah right) legislation that makes it illegal for terms, level, or functionality of service to not be reduced or removed without agreement from BOTH parties, this is what we will have.
Consumers were enough for a while, but the hunger has increased, and you only paid once then! It is immoral for the middle class to be allowed to save, so more ways must be invented to empty there wallets weekly to fund the top (rulers) and the bottom (troublemakers who must be paid to stay in check)... Welcome to the machine.
You could...just not buy a DRMed lightbulb. I know I didn't.
Let the damn thing fail due to no sales.
Guess I can scratch them off my list.
Yeah, this year they are on Santa's naughty list. Hope they get a lump of coal shoved up their socket.
Say goodbye to standard battery sizes like AA or AAA or D or even the rectangular 9v. In the future, everything will have a custom made battery, that you have to replace regularly, and will only be available from the original supplier.
Until they obsolete them, at which point your device is useless and you will have to buy the newest one.
Please note, I am probably *not* giving anyone any ideas here... this is already happening with consumer electronics like phones, it probably won't be long before it applies to everything.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The Phillips Hue Lighting service - all updates are forced and you pay a subscription fee to turn electricity to light. And you'll have to watch a 30 second add before you get to turn the light on or off.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Let's hurry up and apply onerous DRM to our already-overpriced new product!
Hue bulbs seem like an interesting idea, but the price was already more than I'm willing to pay - so I hadn't bought into this system. Now Philips has seen to it that I never will.
#DeleteChrome
but without the internet connectivity how will i ever be able to turn on the lights.
This reminds me of the Sony PS3 case, where you could originally install Linux on it (in fact the USAF did just that to create a cheap computational cluster using over a thousand PS3s), but then Sony changed the firmware to prevent it.
In cases like these, are there any laws allowing you to return the product for a full refund? After all you may have bought it under the premise that it could do something. Then the manufacturer altered the product post-purchase to prevent it from doing those things.
If there isn't such a law, it's high time we passed one. I don't own any Phillips Hue lights, but it was on my short list (not anymore). I would imagine anyone who's bought them to use with non-Phillips bulbs will be pissed. This defeats the whole purpose of using a standardized light socket.
remember the Clintons.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
new firmware pushed out by the manufacturer
The fuck?
I've been buying lightbulbs for well over 5 decades and have never once needed my lightbulb to have "firmware". My computer, sure. My lightbulbs, not so much. Everything seems to have been alright thus far.
What is this about? Why would I ever want firmware in my lightbulbs, let alone anything internet connected?
Corporate douchebags never learn from history. They think that /they/ are special and are going to be able to pull it off, speculating that nobody will catch on and that their product is /so special/ that it can't be changed out for something else, that their company, and their company alone, is the sole innovator in the market.
It's a blinkered thought process only that sociopaths would find attractive. You know, the Carly Fiorina types.
Meanwhile this brain-dead transparent effort to boost stock price only does the opposite.
--
BMO
Soon light bulbs will not be replaceable. You'll have to buy another house.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
figure out why anyone would put up with wireless control of their lights AT ALL - I really don't feel like having my evenings interrupted by the neighborhood a-hole teens turning my living room into strobe-central.
A thousand pounds of wood moving at 300 feet per minute. Don't get in the way.
It's pretty crappy that ZigBee allows this kind of behavior while Philips still has the ZigBee label on their boxes.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Printers are moving in the other direction - at least Epson. I finally gave up on feeding my ever-more-finicky Canon and got an Epson L355 with the ink tank system... god, I've been waiting so long for something like this. The paper now costs well more than the ink. The side effect is if I want something... I just print it. I don't have to worry about whether its worth the cost.
My only complaint is that they could have designed the refill bottles better... they're just pretty normal squeeze bottles, no leak protection on the openings, and no special splatter protection on the ink tank openings, so you have to be rather careful when filling tanks. But it's a minor complaint. Oh, okay one more: I can't tell it not to shut itself off - you can do that in Windows but I use Linux, and the android app (which is otherwise really excellent) doesn't have the ability to control that aspect.
Nothing says 'welcome to the neighborhood' like a gunny sack full of dead squirrels.
Send a packet to your Roomba to roll over to the wall and turn on the light.
The Philips Hue devices form a 'network' of devices, with controllers (dimmers, light switches, and the "Hue Bridge" which talks via a Rest API with Philips' Android/iOS apps), and lights. Philips devices are 'ZigBee' devices, and other manufacturers also make ZigBee devices which can interoperate with the Philips ones, joining the same network.
As of this change, ZigBee devices of any sort can still join the network, and non-Philips ZigBee controllers can still steer the entire network (including Philips devices), but now Philips' controllers will not control non-approved devices. They'll just refuse to talk with them altogether, not even making an attempt.
Philips says they'll approve certain third party devices as "Friends of Hue" and let them in, but presumably that will involve paying some amount for the certification.
Philips Hue. I'm not kidding. The ZigBee Light Link protocol that it uses is an open standard. The API that the Bridge uses to communicate via HTTP is also open, published by Philips. A few third parties have even made LightLink-compatible bulbs. They did not reverse-engineer anything. This summary is a little misleading in several ways: first, any third-party devices already joined will stay that way (unless you reset your bridge to defaults with the new firmware on it); second, there actually are problems with some bulbs that were exposed with the new firmware; and third, it's not that they aren't allowing third-party devices but rather that they just want them to be "Friends of Hue" certified first--though in fairness, even though that program has been around for a couple years I don't think anyone besides Philips has created products for it.
Someone could create an open-source ZigBee LightLink "bridge" compatible with Hue that lets you join whatever bulbs you want. It's just that nobody's done this, possibly because Philips' own product has historically been so good. I suspect some third party may create a compatible "bridge" soon, maybe SmartThings since their hub already has a ZigBee-capable radio, if they ever decide its' a good idea, but who knows. You'd probably also lose the Web-based functionality the Philips bridge enables, like scene syncing across devices, control when you're away from your home network (without needing to VPN in), and the ability to also use the website to control your lights.
R.Mo
Because Carly destroyed a company, and Marissa is about to, apparently. Meg, OTOH, seems determined to try to repair some of the damage.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Candles and a book of matches? :)
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
Jobs is a much better example of the "we invented it sue everyone else into oblivion lock in our customers" sociopathic CEO though. I would say he's the Alpha Sociopath. Cult leaders took lessons from him.
My LED bulbs all put out nice, pleasant light. The old ones cost $1 to buy and $20 to operate for the year they operated. The new ones (not Hue) cost $5 to buy but last 5 times as long and use only $1 of electricity per year. The new ones screwed into standard sockets, the new ones do too. I use the same dimmer switches and regular switches, no new rules to learn. None of mine need software but you are welcome to buy some that do. Now head back outside and tell the kids to stay off your lawn.
Oh for mod points. But mod points wouldn't really work in this case because I'd mod you +1 informative, +1 funny, even though they don't have it, +1 Zing!
Folks, take a couple of minutes and add a review of the Hue products you own on Amazon. A naive buyer will think that he/she can use it with the LED lights from Cree, for example, because there are websites showing this pairing -- we need to inform buyers that this will not work.
It's a service we owe other consumers.
Hue hubs currently enjoy an average of approximately 4 stars. That number seems overly high.
Their explanation is BS. You can't take advantage of a standard to work with the products from your partners but lock out the ones that aren't and claim it is for the customer's benefit.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Carly Fiorina is not, and never has been, the CEO of Yahoo. I guess all blonde female CEOs look the same to you? ;-)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I was previously interested in Hue lights, fortunately I haven't bought them yet. Fuck you.
Are they all running for president right now, too?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Sounds like they're aiming to screw themselves out of the market entirely. Strip it all out of your house and send it back for a refund...
Sears, Roebuck was selling gas light fixtures as late as 1910.
Why?
Because lighting affects your choice of color, patterns and textures in flooring, wall coverings, window dressings, furniture and upholstery. It is an expensive business transitioning from one form of natural or artificial lighting to another --- and once you make the commitment, there is no turning back.
That's "cue" not "queue". If you learn the difference, then next time you won't look so ignorant.
I print something about once a month. WTF are you people doing that you need to use so much god damn paper all the time? It is long past time you monkeys learned to operate without printing every damn thing.
I'm not surprised there's no printer in your mom's basement.
You obviously have never been anywhere near an attorney's office, real estate office, shipping center, or any other place where people have to interact with the real world, for that matter. People print stuff all the damn time in the real world.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
except they didn't actually invent very much of what they sell, he was just very, very good at convincing everyone that these things didn't exist before Apple came out with their own overpriced versions.
Steve had a good side. Absolute losers like Trujillo (who couldn't even win in a government enforced monopoly) are not high profile enough while everyone has heard of, and is STILL hearing of Carly.
Many older dimmers need the wattage pull of incandescents to work properly. and there is nothing a bulb can do about that short of including a heater. That is probably the source of both your threshold effect and the flicker.
It is not the led bulbs that need any special magic, just engineering tradeoffs based on assumptions about operating parameters that simply do not hold up any more.
Cree LED bulbs, both the original design and the newer 4Flow, work well on dimmers. I have three chandelier fixtures with dimmers; I did the first two with the earlier Cree bulbs, but the third had to wait for the 4FLow because the thick collars of the older bulbs wouldn't fit into the glass shades.
They don't get as dim as incandescent bulbs but they get dim enough for me. There is no visible flicker when dimmed and multiple bulbs track correctly (that is, they all dim the same amount); both of those things were problems with dimmable CFLs.
The Philips Slimstyle is not a good choice for use with a dimmer; problems with visible flicker have been reported. They're fine for non-dimmer installations where the bulb will be hidden; the odd shape and imperfect light distribution make them less than perfect for installations where the bulb will be visible.