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A point brought up in the replies to their forum post warrants repeating: They claim that they were concerned about the quality of their brand being eroded by t

by mdip 11y ago

A point brought up in the replies to their forum post warrants repeating: They claim that they were concerned about the quality of their brand being eroded by third-party bulbs that didn't reproduce the same quality experience that first-party/certified bulbs did. They had the solution available to them from day one. Since they can clearly identify third-party bulbs, they could have simply presented a warning along the lines of "We've detected you're using bulbs that are not certified by Philips. For best results, we recommend using only certified bulbs (link to purchase here) and cannot guarantee a quality experience with the bulbs you've purchased. Click "OK" to continue."

eli 11y ago
Will that stop people complaining to Philips support when it doesn't work well?
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  The only real solution to this is to go Google way and just refuse to have any support altogether. Otherwise you can't really stop people calling in with absurd requests. It's a general rule in all consumer sales - the smarter / more savvy a customer is, the less likely is that he'll be calling.
  - JoBrad 11y ago
    I don't know that this model will work for consumer hardware. Hue isn't marketed as a "dumb" lightbulb, and people aren't going to appreciate paying more for less service than they get with a 100w incandescent.
dalbin 11y ago
That's exactly the solution used by Apple, so you can still use DIY HomeKit accessory. https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/HomeKitDeveloperGuide/Art/add_accessory_dialog1_2x.png https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Networ...
culturestate 11y ago
I don't think this would accomplish anything vis-a-vis brand protection, since consumers have been conditioned to just click "OK" at every dialog box that doesn't look like it will explode a mine. Six months down the line, nobody would remember the warning -- they'd still get mad at Philips when a third-party bulb breaks.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  > they'd still get mad at Philips when a third-party bulb breaks. Would they? Wouldn't they blame their bulb first? It's like complaining to your PC manufacturer that a program you downloaded doesn't work. Most people would blame the program and look for another one. I'm sure there are some who have it backwards, and they probably will be calling support, but I can't imagine there's enough of them for a company to actually care about damage to the brand those people may be doing.
  - culturestate 11y ago
    > It's like complaining to your PC manufacturer that a program you downloaded doesn't work. This happens far, far more often than you would think. That line from Men in Black -- "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals." -- rings more true every time I work with a client who handles front-line tech support. I do have to wonder how much of a difference it would make right now, though. Hue is presumably still in the early adopter stage (especially if we're talking about people who are adding non-Hue Zigbee devices to the setup), where you'd hope this kind of confusion would be less common. Edit: this is one of the primary reasons Apple exercises so much control over third party integration on iOS. They get the blame for everything.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      My SO worked way too long answering customer phone calls; I had a healthy fit of horror stories every week. But what I learned from them is that it's all selection bias - savvy, smart customers generally don't call. They solve things themselves, they find solutions themselves, they trust the established procedures (e.g. of returning the merchandise), but above all, they don't call with stupid requests or to bitch about how bad the company is. They only call if you fucked up big. What remains is a mix of "dumb, panicky animals" and people for whom calling is the best option (they may be in a hurry; or for many older people, phone call is the method they're used to and one they trust). It's something you have to deal with, it's for them that you have support in the first place. But for a company like Philips, I can't imagine those support calls make any difference brand-wise. Most companies I know could drop their private-customer help lines altogether, having them respond with busy tone all the time, and nobody would likely notice.
hoorayimhelping 11y ago
A lot of us are in software here and have seen how users use things. I'm not sure I believe that users would read that messaging at all. Even if they did, I doubt it would have much of an effect on users complaining to Phillips later.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Here's how Hue app apparently looks like (I don't have it myself): http://www.geek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Hue.png http://www.geek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Hue.png See those warning marks on the middle screen? I'm not sure what they do, but this is where I'd put them, along with a small text "this bulb is not supported by Philips and may not work properly", and people wouldn't miss it. It would be a constant reminder for them that if something breaks with one of those bulbs, it's their fault.
  - rblatz 11y ago
    That warning means the hue is having trouble talking to that bulb. It may be turned off at the switch, out of range, or removed from service.
jon-wood 11y ago
The process of pairing non-Hue devices with the bridge is convoluted enough that it should be pretty clear to anyone involved that it isn't supported. You need either a third party Java application downloaded from an amateur looking site, or to telnet into your bridge and give it the right commands.
- fastball 11y ago
  You overestimate humanity in general. Consumers will jump thru excessively convoluted hoops in order to get something working that was never really meant to work. Then they complain. Happens all the time.
- rblatz 11y ago
  I just plugged the bulbs in, flipped the light switch on and off 3-5x and then added them from the app. I'm not even sure if I had to reset the bulbs by flipping them off/on but I did just to be sure.
brudgers 11y ago
The useful solution from a customer [1] standpoint is to create value at the level of the interface by just making it work with whatever is hooked up...e.g. decoupling the service from other services. Imagine if Google search only worked for Android device owners. Making each part of a system excellent in it's own right is just better...here it would drive the bulb making team to make bulbs capable of frolicking outside a walled garden. [1] Customers are people with an important relationship. Consumers are things with a behavior, e.g. my toaster consumes electric power. When people are seen as consumers companies do dumb things...like communicate with utter bullshit.
- arbitrage 11y ago
  Google services routinely work better via Chrome. So, I think we can imagine it. Turns out people don't care that much.
  - brudgers 11y ago
    Excellent example! Customers figure out what works for them as individuals all on their own. Chrome works best for one person due to superior integration with Google's services. Another person trades that integration for the convenience of Firemacs. A third person finds the identity management of the Chromium Browser advantageous. And all can search with Google!
wpietri 11y ago
That's definitely not a solution. The Philips Hue line is pretty clearly a premium product. What they're selling is a high-quality experience. Warning boxes are easily clicked and forgotten. Or if they're clicked by somebody you've hired to install a system, you'll never even know. If people have irregular, unsatisfying experiences, they will associate it with the Philips-branded interface they're clicking on, not the off-brand lightbulbs whose labels are tucked away in ceiling fixtures. Personally, I congratulate them for starting their system open. The most brand-friendly and wallet-friendly solution they could have chosen was to close it from day 1. But they started open and stayed open until it became a problem for them. Closing it suddenly and cutting people off was a mistake, but a certification program seems like a reasonable outcome.
prolepunk 11y ago
That's such a weak excuse some marketing person has come up with to cover his or her ass. I can argue that the value of their brand is being eroded when the company is openly hostile to interoperability with other products, and of course customers will have shitty experience because this systems is stand-alone and can't be connected to anything or used in any way except for one specific case.
supergeek133 11y ago
The average consumer would blame philips for even allowing the bulbs... people on HN or various other tech circles know better. But do you know who leaves reviews on Amazon and calls their customer support line? The average consumer. And most companies usually pay per call/minute to their customer care contractors.
- mdip 11y ago
  If by average consumer you are referring to "average purchaser of light bulbs", you are referring to a market that the Philips Hue products are not yet in. The average Philips Hue customer is an early adopter who was willing to spend a large amount of money on a next-generation lighting system. This customer is an early adopter. The question is not whether they should allow third-party bulbs, they already allowed third-party bulbs. The question is whether, after reaping the benefits of creating a product with compatibility built in, if it is a good business move to remove that feature via a software update. People flipped out when their paid-for Kindle copy of 1984 was removed from their e-reader due to legal issues that were out of Amazon's control. And those customers were refunded. They chose to break the lighting of their customers due to user experience issues.
  - lightbritefight 11y ago
    Reminds me of the time Sony removed the "other OS" option from the PS3 that let you load Linux. A feature that had in use for years, and was a selling point for the more hardcore computer nerd. The stated reason they removed it was to prevent "evil hackers" from using it to remove DRM from their games. So three years after release, away it goes. That move got the hardware hackers attention, and the PS3 copy protection was cracked in 3 weeks. Hubris, meet Nemisis.
  - supergeek133 11y ago
    And in their mind it might be a 'rip off the bandaid' move as it becomes more mainstream... these things are starting to be on endcaps in Lowe's, Home Depot, etc.
  - comex 11y ago
Duhck 11y ago
FWIW the "third party integration support" is the biggest problem with smart home products today. Wink, Iris, Hue, SmartThings are all plagued by numbers of low quality integrations and as a result it's up to those companies to handle support for other peoples crappy products, API's or Apps. (edit: to drive the point home, search for "philips hue" or "lifx" in the app store) It's awful and frankly its why my company -- Twist -- is not offering any third party integration support. Until the industry can focus on quality over number of integrations and interoperability, the only customers buying these products will be DIY'ers and professional installers.
- seanp2k2 11y ago
  Integration is the biggest blocker I see to having the smart homes we fantasized about 60 years ago. Right now, it's a big mess, and another company doing lock-in isn't likely to fix it. I'd love to see more companies commit to implementing and improving the standards so everything can play together.

by mdip 11y ago

eli 11y ago

Will that stop people complaining to Philips support when it doesn't work well?

TeMPOraL 11y ago
The only real solution to this is to go Google way and just refuse to have any support altogether. Otherwise you can't really stop people calling in with absurd requests. It's a general rule in all consumer sales - the smarter / more savvy a customer is, the less likely is that he'll be calling.
- JoBrad 11y ago
  I don't know that this model will work for consumer hardware. Hue isn't marketed as a "dumb" lightbulb, and people aren't going to appreciate paying more for less service than they get with a 100w incandescent.

dalbin 11y ago

That's exactly the solution used by Apple, so you can still use DIY HomeKit accessory. https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/HomeKitDeveloperGuide/Art/add_accessory_dialog1_2x.png https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Networ...

culturestate 11y ago

I don't think this would accomplish anything vis-a-vis brand protection, since consumers have been conditioned to just click "OK" at every dialog box that doesn't look like it will explode a mine. Six months down the line, nobody would remember the warning -- they'd still get mad at Philips when a third-party bulb breaks.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
> they'd still get mad at Philips when a third-party bulb breaks. Would they? Wouldn't they blame their bulb first? It's like complaining to your PC manufacturer that a program you downloaded doesn't work. Most people would blame the program and look for another one. I'm sure there are some who have it backwards, and they probably will be calling support, but I can't imagine there's enough of them for a company to actually care about damage to the brand those people may be doing.
- culturestate 11y ago
  > It's like complaining to your PC manufacturer that a program you downloaded doesn't work. This happens far, far more often than you would think. That line from Men in Black -- "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals." -- rings more true every time I work with a client who handles front-line tech support. I do have to wonder how much of a difference it would make right now, though. Hue is presumably still in the early adopter stage (especially if we're talking about people who are adding non-Hue Zigbee devices to the setup), where you'd hope this kind of confusion would be less common. Edit: this is one of the primary reasons Apple exercises so much control over third party integration on iOS. They get the blame for everything.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    My SO worked way too long answering customer phone calls; I had a healthy fit of horror stories every week. But what I learned from them is that it's all selection bias - savvy, smart customers generally don't call. They solve things themselves, they find solutions themselves, they trust the established procedures (e.g. of returning the merchandise), but above all, they don't call with stupid requests or to bitch about how bad the company is. They only call if you fucked up big. What remains is a mix of "dumb, panicky animals" and people for whom calling is the best option (they may be in a hurry; or for many older people, phone call is the method they're used to and one they trust). It's something you have to deal with, it's for them that you have support in the first place. But for a company like Philips, I can't imagine those support calls make any difference brand-wise. Most companies I know could drop their private-customer help lines altogether, having them respond with busy tone all the time, and nobody would likely notice.

hoorayimhelping 11y ago

A lot of us are in software here and have seen how users use things. I'm not sure I believe that users would read that messaging at all. Even if they did, I doubt it would have much of an effect on users complaining to Phillips later.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
Here's how Hue app apparently looks like (I don't have it myself): http://www.geek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Hue.png http://www.geek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Hue.png See those warning marks on the middle screen? I'm not sure what they do, but this is where I'd put them, along with a small text "this bulb is not supported by Philips and may not work properly", and people wouldn't miss it. It would be a constant reminder for them that if something breaks with one of those bulbs, it's their fault.
- rblatz 11y ago
  That warning means the hue is having trouble talking to that bulb. It may be turned off at the switch, out of range, or removed from service.

jon-wood 11y ago

The process of pairing non-Hue devices with the bridge is convoluted enough that it should be pretty clear to anyone involved that it isn't supported. You need either a third party Java application downloaded from an amateur looking site, or to telnet into your bridge and give it the right commands.

fastball 11y ago
You overestimate humanity in general. Consumers will jump thru excessively convoluted hoops in order to get something working that was never really meant to work. Then they complain. Happens all the time.
rblatz 11y ago
I just plugged the bulbs in, flipped the light switch on and off 3-5x and then added them from the app. I'm not even sure if I had to reset the bulbs by flipping them off/on but I did just to be sure.

brudgers 11y ago

The useful solution from a customer [1] standpoint is to create value at the level of the interface by just making it work with whatever is hooked up...e.g. decoupling the service from other services. Imagine if Google search only worked for Android device owners. Making each part of a system excellent in it's own right is just better...here it would drive the bulb making team to make bulbs capable of frolicking outside a walled garden. [1] Customers are people with an important relationship. Consumers are things with a behavior, e.g. my toaster consumes electric power. When people are seen as consumers companies do dumb things...like communicate with utter bullshit.

arbitrage 11y ago
Google services routinely work better via Chrome. So, I think we can imagine it. Turns out people don't care that much.
- brudgers 11y ago
  Excellent example! Customers figure out what works for them as individuals all on their own. Chrome works best for one person due to superior integration with Google's services. Another person trades that integration for the convenience of Firemacs. A third person finds the identity management of the Chromium Browser advantageous. And all can search with Google!

wpietri 11y ago

That's definitely not a solution. The Philips Hue line is pretty clearly a premium product. What they're selling is a high-quality experience. Warning boxes are easily clicked and forgotten. Or if they're clicked by somebody you've hired to install a system, you'll never even know. If people have irregular, unsatisfying experiences, they will associate it with the Philips-branded interface they're clicking on, not the off-brand lightbulbs whose labels are tucked away in ceiling fixtures. Personally, I congratulate them for starting their system open. The most brand-friendly and wallet-friendly solution they could have chosen was to close it from day 1. But they started open and stayed open until it became a problem for them. Closing it suddenly and cutting people off was a mistake, but a certification program seems like a reasonable outcome.

prolepunk 11y ago

That's such a weak excuse some marketing person has come up with to cover his or her ass. I can argue that the value of their brand is being eroded when the company is openly hostile to interoperability with other products, and of course customers will have shitty experience because this systems is stand-alone and can't be connected to anything or used in any way except for one specific case.

supergeek133 11y ago

The average consumer would blame philips for even allowing the bulbs... people on HN or various other tech circles know better. But do you know who leaves reviews on Amazon and calls their customer support line? The average consumer. And most companies usually pay per call/minute to their customer care contractors.

mdip 11y ago
If by average consumer you are referring to "average purchaser of light bulbs", you are referring to a market that the Philips Hue products are not yet in. The average Philips Hue customer is an early adopter who was willing to spend a large amount of money on a next-generation lighting system. This customer is an early adopter. The question is not whether they should allow third-party bulbs, they already allowed third-party bulbs. The question is whether, after reaping the benefits of creating a product with compatibility built in, if it is a good business move to remove that feature via a software update. People flipped out when their paid-for Kindle copy of 1984 was removed from their e-reader due to legal issues that were out of Amazon's control. And those customers were refunded. They chose to break the lighting of their customers due to user experience issues.
- lightbritefight 11y ago
  Reminds me of the time Sony removed the "other OS" option from the PS3 that let you load Linux. A feature that had in use for years, and was a selling point for the more hardcore computer nerd. The stated reason they removed it was to prevent "evil hackers" from using it to remove DRM from their games. So three years after release, away it goes. That move got the hardware hackers attention, and the PS3 copy protection was cracked in 3 weeks. Hubris, meet Nemisis.
- supergeek133 11y ago
  And in their mind it might be a 'rip off the bandaid' move as it becomes more mainstream... these things are starting to be on endcaps in Lowe's, Home Depot, etc.
- comex 11y ago

Duhck 11y ago

FWIW the "third party integration support" is the biggest problem with smart home products today. Wink, Iris, Hue, SmartThings are all plagued by numbers of low quality integrations and as a result it's up to those companies to handle support for other peoples crappy products, API's or Apps. (edit: to drive the point home, search for "philips hue" or "lifx" in the app store) It's awful and frankly its why my company -- Twist -- is not offering any third party integration support. Until the industry can focus on quality over number of integrations and interoperability, the only customers buying these products will be DIY'ers and professional installers.

seanp2k2 11y ago
Integration is the biggest blocker I see to having the smart homes we fantasized about 60 years ago. Right now, it's a big mess, and another company doing lock-in isn't likely to fix it. I'd love to see more companies commit to implementing and improving the standards so everything can play together.