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Philips Won't Block Third-Party Bulbs After All (engadget.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the on-second-thought dept.

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."

20 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. That Was Quick by sexconker · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm glad I sent that caustic, hateful tweet about it. It surely played a role in this decision.

    1. Re:That Was Quick by argumentsockpuppet · · Score: 5, Funny

      Then thank you internet citizen, you are my hero.

    2. Re:That Was Quick by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 4, Funny

      Even Phillips executives hate to be called cows.

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    3. Re:That Was Quick by TWX · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm glad I sent that caustic, hateful tweet about it. It surely played a role in this decision.

      I wouldn't underestimate the effect of directed complaints when those complaints become widely known. The bigger challenge is seeing that they don't re-reverse when the heat is off and think they can now get away with it once fewer people are paying attention.

      I had to sit through a mandatory training the other day, and one study claimed that for every complaint vocalized by a person, there are twenty-six people that feel the same way but haven't expressed it back to the company. If even half that number is true then that's an awful lot of people that are unsatisfied. If this Philips product is fairly new and its development costs not yet recuperated then they can't afford for people to see bad-press and choose to remove it from consideration.

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    4. Re:That Was Quick by aliquis · · Score: 5, Funny

      Even Phillips executives hate to be called cows

      Not as much as cows hate to be called Philips executives.

    5. Re:That Was Quick by Darinbob · · Score: 4, Funny

      The tweet was very mooving.

    6. Re:That Was Quick by DeathElk · · Score: 3, Funny

      That comment was udderly uncalled for.

    7. Re: That Was Quick by johnsnails · · Score: 3, Funny

      I didn't get it. It went in one ear and out the udder.

    8. Re: That Was Quick by KGIII · · Score: 3, Funny

      Come on now. You're just milking it for more bad puns.

      --
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  2. Well thanks for tipping your hand anyway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Well thanks for tipping your hand anyway by Alypius · · Score: 5, Funny

      See, if it had a little fruit shape and called it "iHue", this wouldn't even be news. People would've lined up for the privilege of saying, "Thank you, sir, may I have another?"

  3. Sure, Philips... by SeaFox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Sure, Philips... by reboot246 · · Score: 2

      Indeed. They saw $$ being lost from the customer backlash so they backtracked in only one day. I hope they, and others who would try the same, learned something.

    2. Re:Sure, Philips... by Ravaldy · · Score: 2

      That's a unfounded statement that spells corporate mistrust. Not all corporations are vile and the fact that they didn't resist to the change tells me it was a mistake. One day turn around. How many users actually had the chance to experience the issue? This tells me their tech/software people are very much connected to the user base and cared enough to act quickly. If anything, I'm impressed with this all together.

      Anyhow, when has it become unreasonable for a company to make mistakes?

      Don't forget that they did this with intentions of avoiding problems, not creating more as stated by Philips themselves:

      Philips has dropped support for third-party bulbs after noticing that a growing number of them had "interoperability issues" preventing them from playing nicely with official Hue gear

  4. Re:Philips got caught by Alypius · · Score: 2

    "Posted from AC's iPad"

  5. So... Too soon? by Falconnan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  6. Re:Mistakes will be made by iamacat · · Score: 2

    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.

  7. "Drop support"? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  8. Uh, Light bulb over your head? by Joviex · · Score: 2

    "....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.

  9. Re:Who would buy bulbs that took firmware? by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

    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.

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