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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Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
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What if you are using Hue bulbs with Home Assistant. Works totally local and not connected to the internet. How are they going to enforce those to go online?
It’s probably enforced through an unnoticed firmware update. However if you have never connected them to the internet, they might have not received the broken update.
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I went with matter supported Nanoleaf who don’t require a bridge nor an account (skip option in the app during set up).
I replaced my bridge with a Phoscon ConBee II and running the software in docker.
I want a lamp that fades on as an alarm in the morning, and doesn’t require an internet connection. What options do I have?
I have used this one every day for 4 years, it is really nice and simple (no internet/bluetooth etc just an old school clock with a light). Great min brightness, great max brightness, and has a good 40+min gradual fade from min to max. I’ve tried other ones as well but they didn’t work quite as well as this one.
https://www.amazon.com/Philips-Wake-Up-Simulation-HF3500-60/dp/B00F0W1RIW
The only downside is the beeping, which can be fixed in 5 min by drilling a tiny bit right in the center of the speaker hole on the back. So many people do this, there’s a youtube tutorial for it somewhere.
Use a smart bulb that increases in brightness or color at an specific hour until it is bright enough for you to wake up.
Before you dive into a complicated diy smart home solution, I recommend looking at an off-the-shelf sunrise alarm clock.
If you’re not going to spend 20 hrs on a diy solution that costs 3x what an off-the-shelf solution costs then why even bother .
Well that personal attack was uncalled for.
I somehow didn’t even consider that as an option. I’ll look into that. Thank you.
Easiest > hardest
Hubitat > homeassistant > esphome
Use a Zigbee controller or Zigbee USB stick on a controller, and Zigbee lights. I’m planning to switch to that myself
If you’re willing to go the DIY route, ESPHome might be what you’re looking for.
A Sonoff controller on the lamp, linked to a small Home Assistant server (a cheap Raspberry Pi could do) wouldn’t be too expensive and would run locally.
Do people really just have bare PCBs all over their house?
There’s plenty of small cases or even 3D printable stuff available to put them in a nice enclosure. You could also buy something with an enclosure included, like the atom lite which I got some time ago as a cheap bluetooth proxy; https://shop.m5stack.com/products/atom-lite-esp32-development-kit
I have a lot of ESPs around the house but they are all in enclosures.
I know this post didn’t coin the term 'enshitification", but it really is a great way to describe the monetization of everything that was once good on the internet
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Any guides you can point m to for how to replicate this? I’m handy but I meet some technical limits fairly quickly without instruction. Kinda like cooking, I’m great at it a long as I have a recipe to work with.
If you’re using home assistant just go directly to controlling the bulbs over Zigbee/ZHA and drop the hue hub entirely!
Works great for me, mind you my bulbs are 5+years old.
Apple home kit is the way to go imo for those who don’t want to DIY
That sounds like it’s just trading vendor lock-in with Phillips for Apple instead.
Nothing wrong with that, right? As Bob Dylan says, everyone serves someone.
if OP doesn’t have the passion or time for DIY, the reality is an ecosystem awaits.
Sometimes you just want to pop a QR code, screw your light in and then have your smart speaker / phone just so it’s thing.
the key is who will offer what OP needs without farming data for resale, or, worse, criminal enterprise.
I am in that group. I have philips hue integrated with an Apple TV for a HomeKit hub. Though I don’t think it cut ties with the Philip services when doing that.
Damn I was just thinking of buying some hue lights for my computer monitor since they change color based on the screen. Any non-shitty alternatives for that?
Be aware that the Hue Sync app on desktop won’t work if the output is HDCP so like for movies with the native Netflix app it doesn’t do anything.
Hue emulator/ diy hue. It runs on Linux or an old router. I have it running on a raspberry pi attached to my network. You can use official hue products or a handful of other WiFi light products like IKEA lights or Xiomi Yeelights. I use Yeelight bulbs and custom led strips connected to programmable WiFi chips. Took a bit of soldering but it works flawlessly now. The yeelights and custom strips cost a fraction of the official hue products.
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So let me get this straight. You buy Phillips Hue devices because they work offline. Then they change how the devices you bought function making them only work online forcing you to create an account and allow them to collect data.
This should not be legal. This is a breach of contract, they modified the contract after you already signed it (by buying the device). If they want to do this, they should offer full refunds to anyone that wants to exit the contract, or only apply the changed to new devices.
No issue here. If you don’t like the new terms, just decline and toss all your smart home appliances that you spent your hard earned money on right into the trash.
See, no problem!
/s
There is a bog standard line in nearly every ToS “We have the right to modify this terms of service without notification to the user” blah blah blah. It probably even holds up in court.
Does it matter that these ToS aren’t available until after you buy the product? I mean, these agreements are rarely posted right next to the product in-store or online. Right?
You can own a doodad but it’s a static, useless doodad until you agree to the ToS which allows you to use it.
They do not.
The format where they do is when it is a service provider and they simply stop service of the contract. I.e. if you don’t accept the terms and services for say, using reddit, they can just choose to not continue providing you access to those servers.
But it didn’t hold up on contracts involving already rendered services or anything really other then the outcome of declining being ‘everyone exiting the contract’ or simply moving back to the previous contract.
Courts in the us have pretty much universally upheld that contracts cannot be changed without all parties agreeing.
Yeah but the whole tech industry operates as Whatever-as-a-Service now, which means those ToS changes are able to be applied whenever they like. You either continue using the service or you don’t. This apparently applies to lightbulbs now. Lightbulbs as a Service. Sigh.
I’m sure there’s a line somewhere in the ToS that you always read carefully from beginning to the end, saying that they merely rent you the devices infinitely, so they’re actually not your property and they can do whatever they want with them.
Phillips: " I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further."
They are though
I found the youngling, y’all!
Yall tellin me u need a username and password to change the lighting wtf
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
me over here switching it on and off like a neanderthal from the 1910s
I don’t use them for on/off but to set the intensity, I guess I could get one of those manual sliders…
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.
Home assistant works great with it!
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.
I’m using TP Link Kasa bulbs at home and they work fine for what I need. They integrate well into Home Assistant.
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.
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.
Hue Essentials does the trick on Android
This reads like a joke. How many apps does it take to change the brightness of a bulb?
Absolutely clown shit from Philips.
Tangentially related, but I recently bought a Philips shaver and the thing wanted me to install an app on my phone and connect it to the shaver via bluetooth to send shaving data.
I mean, I guess there’s theoretically value there for some people? I can’t imagine what, but that app’s staying well off my phone.
Just what you need. A popup on your phone reminding you you’re a scruffy git and not shaved in 7 days.
Warning razor blades at 30%, below satisfactory shaving standards, we will auto ship you replacement blades using your phone!
Nobody wants to sell products anymore, they want to sell subscriptions
The biggest gripe I have with this is that they are not cheep. Hue is one of the more expensive products smart lamp products.
Why are they chasing pennies? I could buy 3 ikea lamps for price of 1 hue.
Shame I really liked their color accuracy but guess I have to find new fancy lights.
Luckily I use home assistant so my lamps are not ewaste.
Why are they chasing pennies? Because they can. It’s really simple as that nowadays.
Since they are ZigBee, replace the Hue Hub with an agnostic ZigBee one.
Since you already use home assistant I would recommend this one - https://www.home-assistant.io/skyconnect/
https://zigbee.blakadder.com/zha.html - this is lis of supported devices, if you go for the default ZHA setup.
Thanks for the tips but I meant more that I won’t buy any more hue things because their scummy behavior.
I think what they’re saying is that you can buy that hub and continue to use your existing Hue products. Or are you saying that you can currently use them through Home Assistant without that hub? I’m curious because I’ve got a bunch of Hue bulbs and I’m looking into swapping over to Home Assistant because of this license change, and it’s not clear to me what I need in order to do that.
You’d need a way to run HomeAssistant and some interface to talk Zigbee, like the Conbee 2 or the SkyConnect mentioned here. I was looking into purchasing the SkyConnect last week after hearing about this Philips Hue crap but am not convinced it’s the way to go, I found several reports of reduced range with SkyConnect compared to the Conbee. See for example https://community.home-assistant.io/t/conbee-ii-vs-skyconnect-performance/545759/2 or https://github.com/home-assistant/core/issues/86231. Personally waiting a bit before I purchase either option as I have a hub that works now, but leaning towards the Conbee2 at the moment.
The conbee 3 was just approved by some licensing agency.
But I would recommend the Sonoff Zigbee Gateway ZBDongle E. Upgraded to this with ZHA from Conbee 2 and deconz and it works much more reliable and faster.
But most important: Don’t forget that 2 m USB2 cable to prevent the USB3 interference bug.
Please tell me more about this interference bug.
Also wanted to add that I use the Nortek Zigbee / Z-wave combo stick and it’s worked great https://www.amazon.com/QuickStick-Combo-HUSBZB-1-Nortek-Cert/dp/B0157GOEA8
USB3 has a bug in its specification which causes some interferences on the 2.4GHz band. This yields to a massiv signal strength drop to a zigbee usb stick if you have something plugged in next to it in a USB3 slot. https://youtu.be/tHqZhNcFEvA?si=l7do_2YtG8DH4hJW This video from HomeAssistant demonstrates the effect very nicely.
Thanks! I’ve got a server at home for media stuff at the moment; I was going to throw the Home Assistant software on there too. I’ll look into hubs, and hope that Phillips doesn’t lock me out of my lightbulbs before that shows up.