I will never ever ever ask. A University of Texas alum if they actually NEED orange. I get stared down in Texan and probably gored by a longhorn.
Wether someone NEEDS something is entirely immaterial. Unfortunately they’re right, hue bulbs do currently have the best oranges of any bulb on the market.
Look up circadian rhythm.
My partner also felt it was unnecessary. But now she points out if a light is too bright, or too cold.
It’s one of those things you often have to experience before you get it.
Colors outside of the “white” spectrum aren’t necessary per se, but they are very enjoyable.
I have the lights I want on turn to a lovely aurora green/blue color late at night when I don’t necessarily need much light to do things, but it creates a soothing atmosphere. Even later at night, I have it change to a very dim purple to use as a nightlight, just bright enough that I can see to move around, but dark enough and of a color that it won’t bother me when I try to sleep. This transition also allows me to identify the general time period when I wake up in the middle of the night without having to reach for my phone and blind myself. For special occasions, colors can be used to set the scene and really improve the ambience.
As for “white” spectrum color temperatures, it really sucks being stuck with just one for the life of your bulb (and it’s even worse when someone replaces them with the wrong temperature, but not all of them). Anyone with an interest in interior design knows that you should use different color temperatures for different areas of the house because of the effect the color temperatures have on us. Cool color temperatures tend to wake us up more while warmer color temperatures are more soothing. If you have bulbs that can change their color temperature, then you can adjust them for the activities that you are doing or for the time of day, easing yourself into alertness or slowly winding down for the night. Both require color temperature control as well as dimming to do well.
So essentially, you can stick with one color temperature and use on/off and dimming as the bare miniumum, but for a quality of life improvement, adding to the spectrum really makes a difference. And while quite expensive, Hue really are generally the superior quality bulbs on the market with the added bonus of being zigbee and sometimes bluetooth rather than wifi bulbs.
I use the colors to make scenes for Christmas, Halloween, birthdays and here Eurovision song festival. I have for every country a flag scene. So when counties gonna sing my house colored in their flag colors 
I use one as an ambient weather forecast indicator. I can imagine but haven’t yet done a lot of similar things. Plus, my spouse likes the porch lights to show festive seasonal themes.
But it’s not just RGB. Philips bulbs have consistently good white-spectrum color rendition — not just high CRI (although, that too) but colors and skin tones that CRI score doesn’t represent well.
When they dim, they automatically shift to warmer tones, as incandescent sources do — or as we might expect from a campfire, back whatever thousand years. Many other bulbs dim to a weird blue-toned ghost-light, both unappealing and uncomfortable.
On top of all that, in my experience they last longer than anything else I’ve found.
Oh, and also, they just work with Zigbee and Home Assistant with even less hassle than the Ikea stuff.
All of that adds up to a lot of earned loyalty from me, even though this move sucks.
Responds from Hue on a Appstore review:
"As the features we develop grow, so does the need for more advanced security. To keep your accounts and products secure and ensure you get the most out of your system, you’ll need to create a Philips Hue account soon. We want to reassure you that your system will still work without an internet connection. After creating an account, your data will not be sold to any third parties, and you will only receive marketing communications based on your device and account preferences. Philips Hue needs to offer the owners of our products a robust way to manage which applications, users, and ecosystems have access to their products — and that requires a way to securely identify the owner of the system. Our solution to this will be the Philips Hue account. The previous mechanism used to identify users — based purely on physical access (e.g., pushing the button on the Bridge during setup) — is no longer an adequate solution. We want to give users the tools to keep their data as safe as possible, so we believe that change is needed. Though the full functionality of authorizing access to your Philips Hue system and managing its users will not be fully rolled out when accounts become essential (most notably for Bluetooth users), Hue accounts will still be the foundation on which we’ll be able to implement these features. After creating an account, you’ll still be able to control your lights without an internet connection — just like before. Any usage data collection and marketing communications will remain optional.
Translation: We got caught with our hand in the cookie jar and people across multiple home automation systems got mad about it, so we are making this statement everywhere to save face in light of loss of confidence and potential (or actual) loss of revenue.
They hurt their brand loyalty and now they want it back. Let’s face it, more and more people are turning to having full blown home automation software in their home, it’s no longer just “nerds only”, it is becoming more mainstream and those platforms all have forums and people talk. I think the day when people just got some hues and the app and called it a day are coming to a close. Hue probably had no real concept of just how many of their users talk on forums like this and thought they could sneak this in without much fanfare, but have since learned otherwise.
that is not true, I have an account logged in currently and if I log out the app will delete every configuration on the bridge
This morning I finished moving all of my hue hub based lights over to my zigbee controller. So far so good. I have a wide mix of light types, both internal and exterior. zigbee2mqtt discovered them all.
Now on to create all my groups and update the automations.
It was satisfying to unplug the hue hub.
same. Since first day I have HUE I have an account. Indeed when you logged off it say that it will delete everything. For now I blocked the HUE bridge to have interner access. And there is a iOS app update and leave that also alone.
Currently it seems that it won’t remove bulb but something less important
But after signing out the app is completely wiped out I have to check if when under wifi the situation changes.
I’ve also cut the bridge from internet access. Now Philips has released an update for the bridge (version 1960149090). Since that, I cannot access the contents of the app anymore. Great…
Yes I don’t use Facebook, Insta tiktok, Alexa, Google Drive etc.
HA is for me the ultimate way to be independent from the subscription models and data hungry companies. I must admit; sometimes it is harder to not use them. However Hue is easy to overcome: I moved all Hue devices from a hub to HA using a conbee USB stick. All works fine; scenes, automations and manual control using the Homa Assistant App. Tip: do you have a camera as well? Block Internet access completely for it; most of my 5 camera’s (Dahua, Xiamen, Reolink, Foscam) phone home to China, some of them more than 10 times per minute…
If the bridge was cut off from the internet. How was is possible to update the bridge?
I just unplugged the hue bridge and using all lights and dimmers successful in HA 
with Z2M
I stopped updating the app as soon as I found out about the “online account” requirement. I’ve disabled software updates within the app and haven’t updated the app on my phone since then, and everything still works. I’m hoping that come next year it doesn’t all of a sudden stop working. If it does, I’ll have to switch over …
The current version of the Phillips Hue app on my phone is 5.0.1
The software version on my bridge is 1.60.1960149090
What version of the Phillips app is installed on your mobile device?
Fwiw, I have all functionality in the app while blocking the bridge connecting to the internet.
It did mention an update was available ( how it knew is beyond me) but it might have been the app…
I know it’s blocked because Google can’t see the devices anymore (which is a real bummer)
App is latest ( believe it even updated just now) .
I’ll open the internet to update the bridge and then close again .
