This is bad. One of the perks of a Hue bridge is that you have local access without being forced to use a cloud service.
Let’s just hope the local API stays working as it is.
If you want/need, you can get a Zigbee stick and use MQTT/Z2M (or ZHA I think) to talk to your Hue devices - no hub needed & 100% local.
Yep, that would work - though you’d miss firmware updates for Philips bulbs (unless those are distributed outside of the Hue app as well).
If the local API stays working as it is you could still use HA without re-learning all bulbs to another gateway, which could be a hassle if you have many of them.
But still, it’s a bad move, IMO.
I do get firmware updates from Z2M but cannot remember if Hue bulbs are included. I have definitely updated some Hue products though.
edit:
I have just checked the Z2M pages and found this:
Not all manufacturers make their updates available, below is a (not-complete) list of manufacturer/devices that support it:
- IKEA TRÅDFRI devices
- Ubisys devices
- Some Xiaomi devices
- Salus SP600 Smart plug
- Osram/Ledvance devices (not every firmware is made available by them, in case not you will see the following exception in the log
No image available for ...)- Philips Hue devices (not every firmware is made available by them, in case not you will see the following exception in the log
No image available for ...)- Jung ZLLxx5004M, Jung ZLLHS4 and Gira 2435-10 Gira does unfortunately not seem to offer firmware updates for their wall transmitter 2430-100 (which is very similar to the Jung ZLLxx5004M) and the update file for the Jung wall transmitter does not work for Gira (probably because the Gira wall transmitter only has 6 buttons instead of 8 on the Jung).
- Sengled devices
To check whether your specific device supports OTA updates via Zigbee2MQTT, go to the supported devices page, click on your device and look for the OTA updates section.
I then checked some of the bulbs I have and they are supported. …you need to check each bulb type in the Z2M list to know for sure.