cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/5717757

Today’s story is about Philips Hue by Signify. They will soon start forcing accounts on all users and upload user data to their cloud. For now, Signify says you’ll still be able to control your Hue lights locally as you’re currently used to, but we don’t know if this may change in the future. The privacy policy allows them to store the data and share it with partners.

  • @[email protected]
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    1462 years ago

    Ooh I can’t wait for the new Philips Hue® lighting monthly subscription service, where with a low fee we can access all of our standard lighting IOT with the basic subscription plan and colored lighting with the premium subscription!

    Let the enshittification begin.

    • @[email protected]
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      452 years ago

      But now you’ll never be able to set your room to Baby Yoda Green, Mando Mauve, or New England Patriots Nautical Blue during the big game!

      Show your support for your teams and favourite characters, for only $4.99 a month, or $59 a year (a generous savings)!

      Premium members can link their Disney+, Xbox, and Spotify accounts for $9.99 a month.

      Don’t forget to light up your feed with our new vibrant social media section!

      • JackbyDev
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        62 years ago

        Folks who don’t owe Hue might not realize how close to home this hits. They have a bunch of official Star Wars shit in their Hue Labs area.

      • RiikkaTheIcePrincess
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        142 years ago

        Don’t forget to light up your feed with our new vibrant social media section!

        I’m gonna vom :P

      • @[email protected]
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        2 years ago

        They could also have lootboxes you could buy with HueCoins, a new and shiny blockchain backed in-game currency. From the boxes you would get different colors you could use to decorate your home with. Then you could also use the existing colors to craft new ones. If the RNG wasn’t in your favor, you could just buy the colors you want. It’s a win-win for everyone!

        Every day you log in, you get a free lootbox shard, and when you have 3 shard, you can craft a lootbox for free. With a higher login streak, you get more shards too.

          • @[email protected]
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            22 years ago

            Oh, we’re just getting warmed up here. Didn’t even mention the system of upgrading HueCoins to different tiers, decaying crafting materials, convoluted system of currencies in each tier, upgrading lootboxes, upgrading the RNG etc.

        • JackbyDev
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          62 years ago

          Yo, what if you could own Red! Be sure to get the NFT of your favorite color!

        • @[email protected]
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          52 years ago

          I tried to play this game yesterday. Guess what? Requires you to sign into a MS account to even start the game. I don’t wanna live on this planet anymore.

    • @[email protected]
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      102 years ago

      I think they’ll start with: pay us or it’s lights out. Then walk it back to something that sounds slightly more reasonable.

  • @[email protected]
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    22 years ago

    LIDL is selling a bunch of “smart” crap this week including a “smart” kettle. According to the blurb “Can be linked to the Lidl Smart Home System using your WiFi connection”. And I’m thinking yeah and what possible reason ever would I have for needing that? And the same is true for most smart products.

    • Turun
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      22 years ago

      Actually, having hot water for tea or coffee ready when you wake up is one of the few really good use cases.

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        First ‘public’ webcam stream was of a coffeepot to see if it was full or not, so more folks agree with that. How about making a cup in bed and then walking towards a fresh cup, it’s as if you had a very specific morning butler. I’m aware this is not a need (and I don’t have or need it), but it’s desirable for sure.

  • @[email protected]
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    132 years ago

    I have an adblocker for my home connection. By far, Hue subdomains are the most common blocked ones.

    Philips Hue sends data to servers every few minutes.

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      Is it that chatty because it keeps trying because you block it and it retries a lot?

      It’d still be calling home without it, but maybe not as much as it seems?

      • @[email protected]
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        12 years ago

        Not necessarily. Sometimes I turn off the adblocker for days and still have the requests when turning it back.

  • Thales
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    592 years ago

    Remember, just a few years ago when the latestagecapitalism sub was created and everybody was like ha ha you lefties, and now every single big corporation is self immolating in 2023… good times!

    • SaltySalamander
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      62 years ago

      and now every single big corporation is self immolating in 2023

      The overwhelming majority of people simply do not care. So no, they’re not self-immolating. They understand that people don’t give two shits.

    • be_excellent_to_each_other
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      72 years ago

      and now every single big corporation is self immolating in 2023

      I think that’s overstating it a smidge. I don’t see there being much impact for many of these companies beyond schadenfreude for those of us watching. Twitter’s going to die, but since Musk obviously doesn’t care it takes a lot of the satisfaction from it. Most of these others - I doubt it’s more than a blip.

      Not that I don’t agree with and cheer for your overall point. I just don’t think most of this is moving the needle in any direction.

    • ghostinthemachine
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      152 years ago

      Just listened to the audibook version of this not that long ago. This is the kind of shit they should be teaching people about in school now.

  • @[email protected]
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    52 years ago

    oh wow. i have the GE cync bulbs, everyone says hue is better [which may well be true, the cync app is complete ass + trying to connect / troubleshoot] but maybe this evens things

    • be_excellent_to_each_other
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      2 years ago

      There’s a lesson here somewhere, but I’ll be darned if I can put my finger on what it might be.

      On reddit I’d be linking /r/stallmanwasright

      Because, despite all his flaws, he’s been very right about the dangers proprietary software poses to user privacy, user control, and general user interests. This is but one more thing to toss on a pretty big pile.

      My favorite video covering the core concepts in a fun, cartoony, 3 minute long way for anyone who has never been exposed.

        • @[email protected]
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          72 years ago

          Philips Lighting is a separate company since 2016. In 2017 Philips owned 41% of Philips Lighting, but since September of 2019 Philips no longer owns any shares of Philips Lighting / Signify.

          • just another dev
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            22 years ago

            TIL. Thanks! Weird that the app is still called “Phillips Hue” though. Probably a matter of time.

  • @[email protected]
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    362 years ago

    This is a great innovation by Phillips, and it follows rule 8 from my best selling business book, “12 rules for business”.

    Rule 8: The business is always right - never give customers a choice when you can dictate the terms to them instead.

  • @[email protected]
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    502 years ago

    Lately it is getting more like we are not just the consumers, we are the product. It is very uncomfortable.

      • GigglyBobble
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        182 years ago

        It has been the case for well over a decade but for free web stuff. Philips Hue lights are expensive and still they pull this shit. That’s something that just started quite recently.

        • @[email protected]
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          32 years ago

          No it’s been awhile but people still spread the bullshit remember if your not paying your that product. But that hasn’t been true in awhile there are tons of things you pay for that still spy on you.

        • @[email protected]
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          12 years ago

          No it’s not.

          Phones have costed hundreds of dollars or even over a thousand and have been doing this for over a decade.

  • @[email protected]
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    442 years ago

    This was the final push I needed to switch over to Home Assistant and their hub. I needed a simple plug and play solution and Green delivered.

    Migrates the lights, curtains, and will migrate more.

    Fuck proprietary hubs and technology, and fuck me for buying into that shit in the first place.

    Open source Matter/Zigbee/Zwave when?

    • @[email protected]
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      102 years ago

      The HA SkyConnect does Zigbee and will eventually add Matter support. Z-wave needs a separate dongle, though.

      I’ve literally been in the process of migrating all my Home Automation from SmartThings to HA over the past couple of weeks. I have a mix of Zigbee, Z-wave, and WiFi devices. The HA side has honestly been easier to set up than SmartThings was in the first place.

      I’ve also been working on getting some cameras set up with Frigate and Coral object recognition. That part has been more involved, but I’m pretty happy with the functionality so far.

      I’ve definitely been happy with my decision years ago to stick to devices using standard local protocols. Has made the whole process far less painful than it could have been.

      Funny enough, one of the few things I have that uses a proprietary hub/app are my Hue bulbs – they were my first dip into home automation a decade ago. I haven’t ditched the Hue hub quite yet, but moves like this definitely make me more inclined to.

      • JackbyDev
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        22 years ago

        The Hue Hub (for now) has a nice and easy REST API to control the lights.

      • @[email protected]
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        12 years ago

        This is extremely informative. Yes, I got the SkyConnect and it’s working flawlessly.

        I meant I wish we can see a FOSS alternative to these propriety standards.

        Same here tho. I started with Hue and now I’ll just keep their lights fuck their hubs and accounts and cloud.

        Going forward I’ll buy whatever as long as it satisfies what I need and connects to HA Green.

        FOSS for the absolute win!