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Official Reason: "The lamp that cannot be added may be a lamp from another brand. Philips does not test and cannot guarantee the behavior of all bulbs from othe

Official Reason: "The lamp that cannot be added may be a lamp from another brand. Philips does not test and cannot guarantee the behavior of all bulbs from other brands connected to the Philips Hue system. To guarantee the quality of consumer experience only Philips Hue and Friends of Hue lamps can be added using the the Philips Hue [Hub]." [1] Real Reason: We invested money into our hub and building out our partnerships w/ Zigbee and "Friends of Hue" partners. We need to make up that money on hardware ($60 per bulb [2]) that 3rd parties could manufacture and sell for a fraction of the price. Why would we let 3rd party hardware companies leech off our investment? [1] https://home-assistant.io/images/blog/2015-12-philips-hue-3rd-party/mirror.png https://home-assistant.io/images/blog/2015-12-philips-hue-3r... [2] https://www.store.meethue.com/us https://www.store.meethue.com/us

fixermark 11y ago
Do you have evidence of the "Real Reason" scenario as opposed to the Occam's Razor scenario that (a) Philips really can't guarantee the protocol works with any lights they don't explicitly test against and (b) the reason some manufacturers can slide in at a fraction of the price is that they're cutting necessary corners in either hardware or protocol compliance? ;)
- roymurdock 11y ago
  I think most users would see open connectivity protocols as a feature, and being unable to connect whatever lighting fixture they wanted to the Hue hub as a deterioration of their "consumer experience". Connect some dodgy 3rd party lamp that is non-compliant, or worse, infects your system w/ malware and breaks your products? That's a bad consumer experience you've brought upon yourself, knowing full-well the risks. If anything, it'll make you an ever more loyal Philips Hue customer once you shell out another $200 for another starter pack and never touch the untested 3rd party stuff again. I'd be very surprised if this was anything other than the classic case of - build a very nice garden, then wall it off, or else go broke.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  Occam's Razor favors 'we want more money so wall in the garden'.

fixermark 11y ago

Do you have evidence of the "Real Reason" scenario as opposed to the Occam's Razor scenario that (a) Philips really can't guarantee the protocol works with any lights they don't explicitly test against and (b) the reason some manufacturers can slide in at a fraction of the price is that they're cutting necessary corners in either hardware or protocol compliance? ;)

roymurdock 11y ago
I think most users would see open connectivity protocols as a feature, and being unable to connect whatever lighting fixture they wanted to the Hue hub as a deterioration of their "consumer experience". Connect some dodgy 3rd party lamp that is non-compliant, or worse, infects your system w/ malware and breaks your products? That's a bad consumer experience you've brought upon yourself, knowing full-well the risks. If anything, it'll make you an ever more loyal Philips Hue customer once you shell out another $200 for another starter pack and never touch the untested 3rd party stuff again. I'd be very surprised if this was anything other than the classic case of - build a very nice garden, then wall it off, or else go broke.
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
Occam's Razor favors 'we want more money so wall in the garden'.