Philips was one of the first few mainstream companies to jump on the connected devices bandwagon with its Hue lineup of smart lighting products. Hue lightbulbs are quite good at what they do but they do come at a cost, users have been able to use third-party bulbs but the company announced recently it will ban third-party bulbs for the Hue platform. Philips has backtracked now and confirmed that it’s reserving said ban.
Philips decided to ban third-party support even though quite a lot of people were using those bulbs, however due to some issues that kept cropping up with those bulbs, it decided that it would be best if Hue didn’t support them at all.
Some of the issues that users had to tackle with included lights which did not turn off or lights that did not react correctly to scene recall, or those that stopped proper functioning of its wireless dimmer kits.
Philips now says that even though it banned the bulbs in “good faith,” it underestimated the impact that this would have on users that use bulbs from other manufacturers. In view of that sentiment expressed by its customers Philips has decided to reverse the software upgrade that banned third-party bulbs on Hue.
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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