According to its current privacy policy, with an account, Hue gets access to the configuration of your system to provide the right software updates to the devices. It can only use your data for marketing or share it with third parties if you provide additional consent.
However, in a change to the current policy, Yianni says Hue will not collect usage information from users without additional optional consent. “So, we do not require users share anything about how they use our products,” he says.
“Previously creating an account was consent for usage data processing that we are in the process of decoupling and will be decoupled before accounts become essential — that makes sure it’s possible to create an account without sharing usage data,” says Yianni. However, if you choose to use the cloud services for things like out-of-home connectivity, you will need an account, and Hue will process your data, he says.
If this change to the privacy policy does happen, Home Assistant’s Schoutsen agrees that it would make the requirement for an account more palatable. “But it all depends on the exact changes,” he says.
With the current system, anyone with physical access to your Hue bridge can take it over just by pressing the button.
If a bad actor has access to your home, I doubt light bulbs will be your main concern…
Notably they would also have access to normal physical light switches. Oh no, someone in the room could turn my lights on or off, the horror.
They’re probably the only thing worth stealing in my home.
huehuehue
I just blocked my bridge from accessing the internet. hopefully that will prevent any sneaky update from messing with my local access
I gave them a crap review in the Android app store because of it – I have absolutely no need for my lights to be able to be controlled over the internet outside of my house, and I don’t want the feature nor do I want my hue bulbs connected via any stupid cloud link so they COULD be managed over the internet outside of my house. Their response was “as we add new features, so too do we add new security features to protect the platform and that justifies us requiring you to have a login and make your devices controllable via the cloud”. Uh huh.
I’ve set the Android app to never automatically update in the future and I’m really hopeful that I can avoid this garbage requirement by doing so, but I’m sure they’ve thought of it and I’m going to end up having to move to 3rd party apps to control them eventually.
Isn’t the whole point of Phillip’s Hue’s devices + bridge supposed to be that it could all be operated locally?
That’s why I went with them. Good thing I only have a few so far and can put a pause on buying more until this shakes out.
Traditional non-smart bulbs also work locally, and for a lot less money.
Can’t control colour temperature and brightness, and it’s a pain in the ass getting traditional bulbs to automatically turn on with your morning alarm!
That said I personally wouldn’t buy proprietary smart lighting - all my lights are running the FOSS WLED firmware, controlled through self-hosted HomeAssistant and HyperHDR.
Well shit. I liked my hue bulbs. They were the only ‘smart’ stuff I was willing to set up in my home. The reasoning they gave for this is so disgustingly disingenuous.
Here’s what that means - demand a refund, start a class action suit, idk every corp is doing this rug pull at the same time hoping they can get in before the law catches up.
How does one start a class action suit?
I can’t turn on the lights, i forgot my password
Don’t buy shit that’s remote controlled by a corporation. If you can’t use it offline you haven’t bought it at all.
the issue is that Hue devices can actually be used offline without issues. They are changing that retroactively for users.
