Privacy

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The Philips Hue ecosystem is collapsing into stupidity (rachelbythebay.com)

submitted 1 year ago by narwhal@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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Their latest round of stupidity pops up a new EULA and forces you to take it or, again, you can't access your stuff. But that's just more unenforceable garbage, so who cares, right? Well, it's getting worse.

It seems they are planning on dropping an update which will force you to log in. Yep, no longer will your stuff Just Work across the local network. Now it will have yet another garbage "cloud" "integration" involved, and they certainly will find a way to make things suck even worse for you.

If you ever saw the South Park episode where they try to get the cable company to do something on their behalf and the cable company people just touch themselves inappropriately upon hearing the lamentations of their customers, well, I suspect that's what's going on here. The management of these places are fundamentally sadists, and they are going to auger all of these things into the ground to make their short-term money before flying the coop for the next big thing they can destroy.

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[–] Tenkard@lemmy.ml 22 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Couple of weeks ago I wanted to change the intensity of the light bulb. I open the hue app and it tells me to download the new app, not allowing me to do anything else. I install the new app and it asks me to register.... I still have my bulb at full light :D I'll either find a compatible open source app or a light bulb that respect my privacy, I got a couple of tplink ones which were cheap and seems to work ok

[–] Tankiedesantski@hexbear.net 16 points 1 year ago

This reads like a joke. How many apps does it take to change the brightness of a bulb?

Absolutely clown shit from Philips.

[–] pacoboyd@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm using TP Link Kasa bulbs at home and they work fine for what I need. They integrate well into Home Assistant.

[–] Shinji_Ikari@hexbear.net 2 points 1 year ago

I bought a kasa power strip for individual switching thinking TPlink kept around the no account local API.

They fuckin trashed it and I need an account to use a goddamn power strip. I'm going to have to rip this apart and see if I can reprogram it or something.

[–] Daefsdeda@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

Home assistant works great with it!

[–] ben_dover@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Hue Essentials does the trick on Android

[–] Zastyion345@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

If you got the option buy ikea smart bulb, they work offline with a IR remote, or with zigbee, they have no bullshit software that you need to install to use them.

[–] m_randall@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

Ive heard ikea bulbs were pretty good.

Something else to think about - after moving to a new apartment I switched from smart bulbs (hue) to smart switches (Lutron casetta). It seems pricy but since one switch controls multiple bulbs here (4 in one instance) the price difference was negligible.

I’ve lost the ability to set colors but that was always a gimmick for me and Casetta has been even more rock solid than hue.

[–] June@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

I’m still not sure if this just will ever impact me since I don’t use the Hue app at all. Everything I HomeKit or home assistant.

[–] sooper_dooper_roofer@hexbear.net 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

me over here switching it on and off like a neanderthal from the 1910s

[–] Tenkard@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

I don't use them for on/off but to set the intensity, I guess I could get one of those manual sliders...