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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[–] space@lemmy.dbzer0.com 150 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@lemmy.world 57 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

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[–] ultratiem@lemmy.ca 21 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

[–] noodlejetski@lemm.ee 17 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.

[–] WetBeardHairs@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago (3 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.

[–] Umbrias@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They do not.

The format where they do is when it is a service provider and they simply stop service of the contract. I.e. if you don't accept the terms and services for say, using reddit, they can just choose to not continue providing you access to those servers.

But it didn't hold up on contracts involving already rendered services or anything really other then the outcome of declining being 'everyone exiting the contract' or simply moving back to the previous contract.

Courts in the us have pretty much universally upheld that contracts cannot be changed without all parties agreeing.

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[–] Badland9085@lemm.ee 131 points 1 year ago (2 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.

[–] Tankiedesantski@hexbear.net 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In some places you're legally allowed to reject a product and get a refund if you don't agree with the EULA. Wonder of there'll be reforms allowing people to do that of they don't accept a revised EULA.

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[–] DudeDudenson@lemmings.world 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

[–] Tunawithshoes@lemmy.blahaj.zone 56 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.

[–] criminalunicorn 23 points 1 year ago (1 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.

[–] Tunawithshoes@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Thanks for the tips but I meant more that I won’t buy any more hue things because their scummy behavior.

[–] boatswain@infosec.pub 6 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I think what they're saying is that you can buy that hub and continue to use your existing Hue products. Or are you saying that you can currently use them through Home Assistant without that hub? I'm curious because I've got a bunch of Hue bulbs and I'm looking into swapping over to Home Assistant because of this license change, and it's not clear to me what I need in order to do that.

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[–] Azal@pawb.social 8 points 1 year ago

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

[–] socphoenix@midwest.social 48 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!

[–] 4am@lemm.ee 46 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.

[–] elbowgrease@lemm.ee 46 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

[–] 4am@lemm.ee 33 points 1 year ago (16 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.

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[–] TehPers@beehaw.org 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Tangentially related, but I recently bought a Philips shaver and the thing wanted me to install an app on my phone and connect it to the shaver via bluetooth to send shaving data.

I mean, I guess there's theoretically value there for some people? I can't imagine what, but that app's staying well off my phone.

[–] Swarfega@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just what you need. A popup on your phone reminding you you're a scruffy git and not shaved in 7 days.

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 11 points 1 year ago

Warning razor blades at 30%, below satisfactory shaving standards, we will auto ship you replacement blades using your phone!

Nobody wants to sell products anymore, they want to sell subscriptions

[–] alwaysconfused@lemmy.ca 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] Tenkard@lemmy.ml 22 points 1 year ago (9 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

[–] Tankiedesantski@hexbear.net 16 points 1 year ago

This reads like a joke. How many apps does it take to change the brightness of a bulb?

Absolutely clown shit from Philips.

[–] pacoboyd@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

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[–] Daefsdeda@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

Home assistant works great with it!

[–] ben_dover@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Hue Essentials does the trick on Android

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[–] Zoidsberg@lemmy.ca 18 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@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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

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[–] jeffhykin@lemm.ee 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.

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[–] DarkGamer@kbin.social 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Go with Home Assistant and never use some proprietary hub again.

[–] Facebones@reddthat.com 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Is there a list of stuff it's compatible with? I have a pi I'm running some shit on now, automation may be fun if I can avoid proprietary garbo.

[–] Shadow@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago (6 children)
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[–] SoloboiNanook@hexbear.net 15 points 1 year ago

Yall tellin me u need a username and password to change the lighting wtf

[–] BenderFender@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What if you are using Hue bulbs with Home Assistant. Works totally local and not connected to the internet. How are they going to enforce those to go online?

[–] ky56@aussie.zone 5 points 1 year ago

It's probably enforced through an unnoticed firmware update. However if you have never connected them to the internet, they might have not received the broken update.

[–] Tankiedesantski@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Damn I was just thinking of buying some hue lights for my computer monitor since they change color based on the screen. Any non-shitty alternatives for that?

[–] AssholeDestroyer@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

Hue emulator/ diy hue. It runs on Linux or an old router. I have it running on a raspberry pi attached to my network. You can use official hue products or a handful of other WiFi light products like IKEA lights or Xiomi Yeelights. I use Yeelight bulbs and custom led strips connected to programmable WiFi chips. Took a bit of soldering but it works flawlessly now. The yeelights and custom strips cost a fraction of the official hue products.

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