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from the beating-back-corporate-giants dept.
Philips has backed down over its plan to keep out third-party bulbs from its Hue smart lighting system:
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. [...] Philips' customers have staged a very noisy protest at the move and the firm has backed down. In a statement on the Hue Facebook page, Philips gave a somewhat ungracious explanation about why it had reversed its earlier decision.
"We recently upgraded the software for Philips Hue to ensure the best seamless connected lighting experience for our customers. This change was made in good faith," Philips said. "However, 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. In view of the sentiment expressed by our customers, we have decided to reverse the software upgrade so that lights from other brands continue to work as they did before with the Philips Hue system."
Previously: Lightbulb DRM: Philips Locks Purchasers Out Of 3rd-Party Bulbs With Firmware Update
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Thursday December 17 2015, @05:33PM
i think Philips may have inadvertently triggered the rise of an open source competitor. hackers don't like getting dicked over and their hardware isn't exactly complex.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Thursday December 17 2015, @08:01PM
Your average consumer doesn't give a shit though, and throws money at the company with the most advertising. The average person seems to have a very limited ability to extrapolate what their behaviour will result in in the long term.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 18 2015, @12:18AM
Your average "hacker" doesn't give a shit either. It's easy to complain, but it takes effort to get off your ass and start a project. And if you do, you're basically on your own while the other 99% of the "hackers" are telling you your're a dick if you don't give them your code for free and fix their bugs.
You ought to know this more than most around here given the amount of time you put into this site. I have much admiration for the people who do put in the love and effort on the wonderful free code I use because most people like me who love and use free code are totally going to do something to contribute back, but we don't. I, at least, like to think that I have an honest opinion of myself and I don't bitch about free code if I'm frustrated by it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 18 2015, @12:24AM
Finding in reporting bugs can have some benefit.
However, even that has constantly moving goal-posts:
When I am trying to get something to work, the last thing I want to do is file 20 different bug reports.