Philips Hue will force users to upload their data to Hue cloud

Wait, what!?

So when they refer to security, it’s not about providing an apparently secure service, but rather about security applications (like using their service for home security).

This whole thing just got a whole lot weirder — and ambiguous…

1 Like

Done. I’ve just updated the custom_component with a few additional services that simulate just that or at least something somewhat similar that is good enough for me.
The implementation is pretty basic as all it does is manage a timer that applies the scene periodically with shuffled colors and a rather long transition.

This isn’t how hue implements the feature, as there it’s happening on the zigbee level and to my knowledge only requires a single call to the bulb, but I doubt that you will overload your zigbee network by changing colors every 5 minutes or so.
The upside of this approach is that it will work with all light entities and not just hue zigbee lights.

3 Likes

Pretty cool, rebooting my HA now to see how it works! Did you have ChatGPT do that as well or is that all you? Personally I’m gobsmacked that ChatGPT could crank out an integration like that at all.

UPDATE: I just installed the new version and while it’s not quite as smooth as the Hue dynamic scenes this is the last thing I was holding on to my hub for so this weekend I’m moving all my Hue’s to ZHA! Thank you @Hypfer for taking the initiative on this and I look forward to you hopefully turning this new extension into an awesome one that everyone latches onto (and yes, I’ve already tried it with my Inovelli bulbs and it works well there too!).

ChatGPT mostly fills in my lack of experience in python and python-isms. It’s impressive what it can do, but you still need to build the concept in your head and then only ask it for small slices of it.
It also didn’t save me from looking up a few details in the HA code and some other custom_components.

It’s basically like a coworker with a wildly fluctuating skill level that won’t get tired of you asking them stuff.

Nice! Happy to hear that it brings value to you :slight_smile:

3 Likes

It’s not just immoral, this should be straight out illegal. Simple as that.
Selling hundreds of dollars of device to someone then taking hostage the usability of said device afterward…
All this probably to either snoop insane amount of data they want to sell, or to sell a shitty subscription that nobody asked for…

6 Likes

I am a bit confused by this.
As much as I know Hue already supports Matter and Matter should run locally.
So how can they force you to create a cloud account ?
I don’t have Hue myself and don’t know much about Matter yet but this announcement and Matter support seem conflicting to me

They can force cloud on you by locking the option to get the Matter code so it can only be paired via Matter if you have such an account

You only bought payed for the hardware but at the same time Philips Hue has full (and only) control over the software part on your devices. If your bulbs ending up being connected to a bridge via the internet they (who? hue) can do anything they want with the hardware you payed for. :man_shrugging:

Owning a device completely requires research up-front but comes with many benefits as rolling the own software on the device, extending functionalities or simply keeping it up to date even years after the manufacture abandoned the device. :hammer_and_wrench:

The right to repair is something you don’t have if you only pay for hardware which are black boxes and (when connected to the internet) could be deactivated/degraded any moment by bad actors (typically manufactures). :put_litter_in_its_place:

1 Like

I don’t know if anyone is interested, but I try following it up with questions what the improvements actually are.
The answer I got:

With a Philips Hue account, you’ll get insights and control over every user and third-party application that has access to your Philips Hue system.

Additionally, with the added access to user permissions, you can limit permissions for a certain user, preventing your children or house guests from deleting your Home settings or accessories, for example.

I told them I already have control (it requres a physical button press) over these things. Looking forward for the next reply.

They can force cloud on you by locking the option to get the Matter code

So Hue gets a Matter certificate even if they force me to use their cloud? Also, I still need to use the Hue app to setup everything and I can’t have one single app for everything?

But still that hardware is Matter certified and needs to meet some requiremnts for that. I had in mind that one of those requirements is local access and interoperability with other Matter devices. If they force me to use an account, they don’t meet those requirements in my optionion.

3 Likes

They can for sure get around that by burying a “local Matter setup” option deep in the apps settings so no-one finds that but it’s there

In an ideal world I wouldn’t even need the Hue app, I should be able to setup everything using any other “Matter-app” out there. Not sure if that is also part of what Matter wants to do.

It should be like that for devices that have a Matter pairing code, but Hue Bridges don’t have such a physical code, thus locking Matter behind the account is easy for Signify

Funny how they want to turn this into a “benefit”.
Our local electrical utility has offered us free* Honeywell Thermostats.

*The catch? The utility can raise our A/C temperature in the summer to “reduce demand”. And we won’t know it until we start sweating. Set it to 75° and a couple of minutes later the utility will reset it to 80°.

No cloud sh** here. Never.

2 Likes

That’s becoming more common in the US, we have that here in Colorado as well but they give you a Nest or a Honeywell for the job. At least you have the chance to opt-in for it so you are fully aware of the downside before you pull the trigger.

In the end I think that locking the “latest and greatest” feature of Matter behind some sort of paywall or privacy relinquishment is why they are doing this. Like so many companies with products are doing these days, they want that monthly revenue rather than the billions in sales being enough. Car companies, who are slowly reversing this due to massive blowback, have been charging a monthly fee for the privilege of using Apple CarPlay or even seat heaters, you stop paying and you stop having a warm caboose on cold days. Subscription fatigue is real but companies who were slow to adopt this idiotic subscription model in the early days are trying to bring that to market now when people are already sick of it. Remember “cutting the cord” for cable? That’s now a thing for all these streaming services that cost you many times more than cable ever did and people are cancelling recurring subscriptions rapidly now.

In any case, Hue is obviously greedy - they either want a paywall, they want to charge for Matter or they want to sell your data - all of these just say “go local” and be done with Hue’s hubs (which I bet go away with proprietary tech soon).

By the looks if it you can be also matter certified and have all features of a device only in the manufactures (cloud) app :man_shrugging:

Feature Comparison Table

MINIR4M uses Matter as its connectivity standard, however, it doesn’t mean that all platforms will have the same features. Let’s take a look at the summary table provided by SONOFF to understand the differences when using MINIR4M on different Smart Home platforms. […]

Review of the first Matter device by SONOFF - MINI Extreme Wi-Fi Smart Switch (MINIR4M) - CNX Software

They said they want to do it better this time and repeat old mistakes again :put_litter_in_its_place:

For what it’s worth, I regularly get OTA updates for my Philips lights through Zigbee2mqtt.

As long as they are committed to continuing to provide these — and to Zigbee in general (or Matter in the future), I’m happy enough.

I really hope that remains true, though, because in my experience these bulbs have the best spectrum coverage as white-light, and the best RGB too (a lot of others really, really fail at making a nice orange, never mind anything like giving results similar to what one would expect from traditional sRGB monitor colors). And they are more reliable than any other brand I’ve found.

5 Likes

Yes, I settled on hue/wiz lights because of this reason. Went with Hue because I don’t want wifi (with wiz). Both brands are made by silicon labs and they really do have the best color range. Especially orange. All other brands tended to make orange look like soft white.

3 Likes

Totally agree. Hue bulbs are the best color bulbs on the market IMHO and some of the better white bulbs too. I am not going to stop using Hue, just their hub is blocked from the Internet for now with the Zigbee migration on my schedule.

3 Likes

Yes, hue bulbs are the only ones with a full rgb spectrum, but they are really expensive (especially gu10 and e14 ones) my fallback atm is ledvance, their E27 bulbs are very cheap (currently 13€ on amazon) and they have a decent spectrum