I sympathize with the general paranoia regarding home automation dependencies but pretty much nothing about this article is accurate.
The so-called "forced" update on the Bridge is to upgrade older Bridges that are as old as 2011 or 2015. The upgrade allows this ancient hardware to leverage features of the newer generations of bulbs.
So it's a compatibility update for old hardware. So that you can buy any generation of bulb and use it with any Bridge. If anything, it shows commitment to longevity, customer convenience and the prevention of waste.
But if you're not into that, the update is triggered by means of the official Hue app, which is the sole reliable touch point by which the company can enforce/communicate anything because they have no other way of reaching you. Use any of the 100+ other apps and they will not force you to update the Bridge. And if even that isn't solid enough for you, disconnect the Bridge from the internet. Everything you own works and keeps working.
As for the upcoming update triggering you to create an account: this is because too many people have shitty network setups, connect their Bridge to the internet and then complain that their lights are hacked. Whilst this account is created online, that interaction is one-time only. What it does is to create a username and cryptographic key on the Bridge after which that authentication is fully local. Which is the exact same mechanism in use by 3rd party Hue apps for over a decade now. Many people already are using an account because this is needed for some advanced use cases like syncing with Spotify or with your TV. Not to mention that it prevents "funny" house guests from messing with your lights.
The idea that your hardware is unsafe and might be rendered useless in the future is completely unwarranted and pure misinformation. Any Bridge, any bulb, no matter how old, will keep working until the hardware itself fails. This system is a shining example of longevity.
12 years of full compatibility, an open API, hundreds of 3rd party apps, ground level Zigbee compatibility, meaningful security updates, if this is a "collapse", what would you call other systems?
And no, I do not work for Philips or Signify. But I did build software on top of their system.
What is especially interesting is how a poorly researched article has an entire community nodding along. Immediate consensus on something blatantly false.
The so-called "forced" update on the Bridge is to upgrade older Bridges that are as old as 2011 or 2015. The upgrade allows this ancient hardware to leverage features of the newer generations of bulbs.
So it's a compatibility update for old hardware. So that you can buy any generation of bulb and use it with any Bridge. If anything, it shows commitment to longevity, customer convenience and the prevention of waste.
But if you're not into that, the update is triggered by means of the official Hue app, which is the sole reliable touch point by which the company can enforce/communicate anything because they have no other way of reaching you. Use any of the 100+ other apps and they will not force you to update the Bridge. And if even that isn't solid enough for you, disconnect the Bridge from the internet. Everything you own works and keeps working.
As for the upcoming update triggering you to create an account: this is because too many people have shitty network setups, connect their Bridge to the internet and then complain that their lights are hacked. Whilst this account is created online, that interaction is one-time only. What it does is to create a username and cryptographic key on the Bridge after which that authentication is fully local. Which is the exact same mechanism in use by 3rd party Hue apps for over a decade now. Many people already are using an account because this is needed for some advanced use cases like syncing with Spotify or with your TV. Not to mention that it prevents "funny" house guests from messing with your lights.
The idea that your hardware is unsafe and might be rendered useless in the future is completely unwarranted and pure misinformation. Any Bridge, any bulb, no matter how old, will keep working until the hardware itself fails. This system is a shining example of longevity.
12 years of full compatibility, an open API, hundreds of 3rd party apps, ground level Zigbee compatibility, meaningful security updates, if this is a "collapse", what would you call other systems?
And no, I do not work for Philips or Signify. But I did build software on top of their system.
What is especially interesting is how a poorly researched article has an entire community nodding along. Immediate consensus on something blatantly false.