this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023
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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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[–] [email protected] 133 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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.

[–] ForgotAboutDre 57 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Phillips: " I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

I found the youngling, y'all!

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] osmoen 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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?

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[–] [email protected] 116 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I swear, these bad EULA updates that basically force users to “accept the agreement, or we’ll brick your device” needs to fucking stop and be made illegal. The price that’s set for a product, especially a damn physical product, should include the acceptance of an existing EULA, and it should be honoured even when new ones come out and the user chooses to not accept the new agreement. You’ve basically never owned the product if companies can just pull the rug underneath you, and render your hardware useless. And you can’t foresee such changes too; a predatory company can acquire one that you’ve trusted and pull this shit. It’s borderline daylight larceny.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

"You’ve basically never owned the product if companies can just pull the rug underneath you, and render your hardware useless"

See, that's the thing, as far as the companies are concerned this is their product not yours. You'll own nothing and you will like it

[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Why are they chasing pennies? Because they can. It's really simple as that nowadays.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (7 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago

If they remove the ability to Zigbee to other hubs I swear to god I will be the first one on the class action lawsuit train.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago

I know you the author doesn’t seem to want to hear about Home Assistant, but it does have the HomeKit integration they want and you have the fine tuned control the want too!

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Javascript plus a "curl | sudo sh" attitude to life equals "yeah no, I am never touching this thing".

Assclown take. Buy a HomeAssistant Yellow and boom done.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Would a Home Assistant Green be just as good?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I heard Home Assistant Green is made of people.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

IT'S PEOPLE!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Don’t know about green but I got a Home Assistant Blue and it’s good enough. Tho You can just use a raspberry pi.

Side note I think you were being sarcastic when you said Home Assistant Green, so I wanted to make reply that sounded sarcastic but Home Assistant Blue and Home Assistant Yellow are real things, tho rereading my comment if one isn’t familiar with technology or home assistant talking about Home Assistant, colors, and raspberry pi for controlling light bulbs just sounds like trolling.

Edit: Sorry, Home Assistant Green is also real. It’s every level hardware that is more than enough for running home assistant and Home Assistant Yellow is the next step up in hardware. Home Assistant Blue was a limited edition run of the hardware prior to Home Assistant Yellow being created. To be clear, I am not trying to troll but to one that isn’t familiar with this technology these names might sound like trolling.

[–] nadir 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

https://www.home-assistant.io/green/ No idea who's serious anymore but just adding that the green is also a thing

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Oh…well, I didn’t know green was a thing. Thanks for the info, I guess the serious description of each is Home Assistant blue was a limited edition with entry level hardware, essentially the same thing as home assistant green. Home assistant yellow is more of an enthusiast hardware that had zigbee built in and a raspberry pi is just a raspberry pi and runs home assistant just fine.

I personally run my instance on home assistant blue but have helped a few friends setup home assistant on a raspberry pi. So any of the options will work just fine.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, Green is their latest launch, supposed to be cheaper and easier for newcomers to start.

If that is the attitude that vets take when newcomers ask questions, good luck getting widspread adoption.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (4 children)

My apologies, before now I haven’t heard of green. I legitimately run my instance on the limited edition blue that kinda lead to yellow being created and before that I used a raspberry pi. My original comment was a little bit of me finding the naming for this stuff funny, not trying to discourage anyone that is new to the platform.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I don't know why you're being hassled. I legit had never heard of Home Assistant and made a dumb throwaway joke because the colors mentioned were Yellow and Green, which were also flavors of Soylent in the film Soylent Green. (There was also a Soylent Red, but thats immaterial to this)

I honestly thought the person mentioning Home Assistant Green was making a similar joke... So, your misunderstanding is valid, imho.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

I bought a Raspberry Pi a few months ago and I feel strangely prepared. I wanted to use Home Assistant to have greater control over my devices since Philips Hue's app seemed limited.

I feel like a sucker for falling for Philip's marketing but at least I can use zigbee. I have now decoupled myself from their Hue Hub and app. Unfortunately I now have a wasteful hub sitting around. I have it posted for free on the classifieds in hopes it will disappear.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (6 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I'm using TP Link Kasa bulbs at home and they work fine for what I need. They integrate well into Home Assistant.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Home assistant works great with it!

[–] ben_dover 4 points 1 year ago

Hue Essentials does the trick on Android

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

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.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This is annoying, I just had to buy a new hue hub because they stopped supporting my old one, now this shit. Guess I have to migrate out of hue hub and set everything up again.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (8 children)

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?

[–] andocas 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Before you dive into a complicated diy smart home solution, I recommend looking at an off-the-shelf sunrise alarm clock.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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 .

[–] droans 3 points 1 year ago

Well that personal attack was uncalled for.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I somehow didn't even consider that as an option. I'll look into that. Thank you.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Easiest > hardest

Hubitat > homeassistant > esphome

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Use a Zigbee controller or Zigbee USB stick on a controller, and Zigbee lights. I'm planning to switch to that myself

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I went with matter supported Nanoleaf who don’t require a bridge nor an account (skip option in the app during set up).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I replaced my bridge with a Phoscon ConBee II and running the software in docker.

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