Dutch electronics giant Philips has been forced into an embarrassing U-turn over its plans to lock out third-party suppliers of light bulbs for its Hue smart lighting system. Since Philips uses the ZigBee Light Link (LL) standard, many users have found over the years that bulbs from GE, Cree, and Sylvania that support ZigBee LL can also be paired with a Hue Bridge and integrated into the Hue ecosystem, although compatibility issues are commonly reported online, such as lights that do not turn fully off, or lights that don’t respond properly to Hue scenes.
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Philips will no longer support some third-party light bulbs in order to address several interoperability issues involving products made by third-party manufacturers. The news was not well-received by the community at large – especially given that Philips lighting products are significantly more expensive than its competitors. Its Friends of Hue program allows bulb makers to produce units that function with the Philips Hue bridge, according to Tech Crunch. A new update has rolled out which would have only the Philips bulbs work with the Philips Hue app.
The company is working on new firmware that will reverse the previous 1.11 update, which arrived on Monday and promptly caused a backlash.
“We under estimated the impact this would have on a small number of customers who use lights from other brands which could not be controlled by the Philips Hue software”, the company said in a statement.
While the Philips Hue system is based on open technologies we are not able to ensure all products from other brands are tested and fully interoperable with all of our software updates.
It’s now working on a reversal of that upgrade and will confirm when it’s available in the very near future.
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It reiterated that “compatibility issues” with third-party uncertified lights will remain, but “in view of the sentiment expressed by customers” it had reversed the decision. “Philips welcomes other brands to join as Friends of Hue so that we can work together to ensure seamless and great lighting experiences”.
