Josh Hendrickson
On its Twitter account, Philips Hue just made a surprise announcement. The company plans to cut off first-generation Hue Hubs from the internet. Additionally, it will stop supporting the hubs or offering security updates. After April 2020, if you want remote control for your smart bulbs, you’ll need to upgrade to a newer hub.
Philips had already relegated older Hue Hubs to a separate unsupported Philips Hue app, so first-generation hubs were already missing out on new features. But with this change, users will lose access to remote control features and security updates. That’s a problem considering smart bulbs and hubs are an attack vector for smart homes.
After April 2020 no software updates will be made available for the Hue Bridge v1 and compatibility with our online services will be terminated at that time. The Hue Bridge v1 can still be controlled locally via the dedicated Philips Hue Bridge v1 app. >>
— Philips Hue (@tweethue) March 6, 2020
The only bit of good news is that the Philips Hue Bridge and bulbs communicate over ZigBee, and not Wi-Fi. So while you’ll lose remote access to your smart devices, you’ll still have local control when you connect to the same network.
Hi Bogdan, thank you for your message. We have designed the Bridge V2 to be future proof. We actually decided to eventually discontinue further software updates and online services for the Hue Bridge v1, in order to focus on supporting our Hue Bridge v2 ecosystem.
— Philips Hue (@tweethue) March 6, 2020
Philips said it cut off the first generation hub in part to focus on the V2 bridge and ecosystem. It’s calling that hub “future proof.” Unfortunately, with smart homes, anything can break at any time, and there’s not much you can do about it. That you’ll have to buy a new hub to keep using features you may have come to rely on is a hard pill to swallow, though.
via VICE
