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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: 3, Interesting) by iWantToKeepAnon on Thursday December 17 2015, @09:56PM
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 4, Informative) by EvilSS on Thursday December 17 2015, @10:00PM
The DRM was the nail in the coffin, but the real reason was the expiring patent allowing competition in the k-cup market. When any company can now produce coffee pods, undercut the Keurig price and probably taste the same or better... well, your business model just imploded.