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Philips Won't Block Third-Party Bulbs After All (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A day after Philips announced that it would drop support for third-party Hue bulbs the company has reversed its decision. An announcement reads is part: "We recently upgraded the software for Philips Hue to ensure the best seamless connected lighting experience for our customers. This change was made in good faith. However, we under estimated the impact this would have on a small number of customers who use lights from other brands which could not be controlled by the Philips Hue software. In view of the sentiment expressed by our customers, we have decided to reverse the software upgrade so that lights from other brands continue to work as they did before with the Philips Hue system."
I'm glad I sent that caustic, hateful tweet about it. It surely played a role in this decision.
Thanks for announcing that you have both the drive and the ability to lock down your """smart"""bulbs to their own little Philips eco-system, regardless of how you plan on leveraging it. It's still a nice red-flag for those of us who don't want to throw their money down the toilet.
This change was made in good faith. However, we under estimated the impact this would have on a small number of customers who use lights from other brands which could not be controlled by the Philips Hue software.
The fact they changed their decision shows it's not really such a small number of customers.
Just like when congress has a shitty bill, we bitch, and it's stopped, right? They wouldn't ever wait a few months and then slip that shit back in, would there? There's no need for us to be ever-vigilant against corporations and governments raping us?
Digital LIGHTS Management! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Translation "for now... we'll try again tomorrow"
"Posted from AC's iPad"
I read this a bit differently than how they worded it. To me it reads, "The combination of low numbers of adopters of the system combined with a natural desire to avoid 'lock-in' will limit our market share. Hence, we have decided to wait until more people adopt the product before trying again." Until they promise to NEVER do this AGAIN I recommend against the product.
A lot of time there are strong business reasons for unpopular decisions and reversing them has consequences. Maybe Philips had to cancel a new feature that was not working well with 3rd party bulbs, or they might release it anyway and have negative publicity from things breaking. Always good when company is responsive to customers, but things are often more complex than when they look to outsiders.
Sound more like your stuck in the 19th century with your filament bulbs.
These are long life bulbs. No point in having extra hardware when the general application for said bulb is to allow remote control which is easy to do if it enabled zigbee support.
A day after Philips announced that it would drop support for third-party Hue bulbs
Is "drop support for" a euphemism for "actively block"?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Firmware exists because people want to spend a lot less energy producing light, and using equipment that doesn't use its energy to produce 80% heat, 20% light is a good way to go about that.
Please explain how you need firmware for that.
I could be completely wrong of course, as I am just making guesses but I see this as being their thought process.
Worker bee 1: Boss we are getting a lot of complaints and service requests where people are trying to use non-compliant 3rd party bulbs with the Hue system. We are copping a lot of the flack for these bulbs not working properly even though it is the third party that is making shit not us.
Boss: Hmmmm. Perhaps what we could do is put together a certification system, I know lets call it "Friends of Hue", and push that out to 3rd party manufacturers. Then we set our system to only work with those compliant bulbs. That way we know the system will work. We really can't afford to be blamed for other peoples shit products.
Worker bee 1: Sounds good. I'll roll it out.
Worker bee 2: Boss we fucked up. We had no idea the level of penetration that 3rd party bulbs had with out system. People are saying we are as bad as Sony. Instead of them seeing it as a quality control measure they think we are trying to lock down the system. We can't afford to lose the enthusiast market, they ARE our market.
Boss: Crap crap crap crap crap. Roll it back and roll it back now. This wasn't what was meant to happen. Oh shit I'm going to get hammered for this.
They have to modify the motto "DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run" a little. But eventually there will enough slack and bugs in API that only the Phillips bulbs know how to work around, and the competitors will just wither on the vine.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Because environmental activists are trying to ban THOSE sorts of bulbs.
"....However, we under estimated the impact this would have on a small number of customers who use lights from other brands ..."
Yes, because business are always swayed by the MINORITY.
right.
A bulb is just that, a bulb. A filament heated by application of 120VAC across it. Why is there firmware? This sounds like a Millenial problem.
You're correct. This is for millenials that like to have their lights switching colours and dimming via their phones. For the rest of us, simple, dumb LED bulbs do the job of saving power and lasting long without the need for firmware or controllers.
Trying to become famous by taking photos. Visit my homepage please.
A bulb is just that, a bulb. A filament heated by application of 120VAC across it. Why is there firmware?
Uh what? A lamp is a filament surrounded a bulb. A bulb is not a filament. There is firmware because these are not bulbs, as the chucklefucks "editing" Slashdot would have you believe. These are lamps, and they are remotely addressable ones.
This sounds like a Millenial problem.
It's actually a Slashdot problem. Editors didn't edit, and then you left a dumb comment about it. See? Typical Slashdot in every way.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So, lets make this change in our product (cost $10) that causes guaranteed outrage in (social) media (publicity, $0), then revert the product change ($10) and leave the impression we care about our non-customers and come out as heroes (=profit). Cherry on top we've just convinced everyone not yet our customer that it is safe to buy our product because it "can't" go wrong anymore (=megaprofit). Worried much?
There are similar ideas about sending spent water from the shower to the toilet, or plumbing that uses rain water. But the costs of installing and maintaining separate, additional, parallel plumbing makes such schemes counter-productive. Worse, with more pipes around you will end up with more leaks.
48V DC in the home sounds kind of neat though. Not sure if it is worth it. About half an amp (like Power over Ethernet) is plenty for a lamp, a speaker or amp, a monitor or a low power desktop or laptop.
You're correct. This is for millenials that like to have their lights switching colours and dimming via their phones.
Who wouldn't like to have their lights at least be able to follow a natural light curve, so as to not interfere with their sleep patterns? Or an unnatural one, if they work an odd shift.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There are similar ideas about sending spent water from the shower to the toilet, or plumbing that uses rain water. But the costs of installing and maintaining separate, additional, parallel plumbing makes such schemes counter-productive. Worse, with more pipes around you will end up with more leaks.
If you try to retrofit, you will only sweat, bleed and cry. But designing for greywater to begin with requires very little more piping. And if you actually wanted to design for green plumbing, you wouldn't have a black water connection; you'd ideally have a composting toilet (e.g. Johann Lengen's bason design) and it wouldn't even use water. The output is soil, and it's biologically safe to plant food crops into. Your kitchen compost also goes into the bason toilet, so that also reduces your food waste. Your hand wash water goes to the same place as the rest of your wash water — to irrigation. It can go to landscaping even if you use crap body product, but if you use clean stuff then you can water your food with it.
Even if all you do is send your shower water out for irrigation, that's cheap and easy and can save a whole bunch.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
... It's actually a Slashdot problem. Editors didn't edit, and then you left a dumb comment about it. See? Typical Slashdot in every way.
Um... I thought slashdot didn't -have- any editors. 8-)