Now after one announcement it's something I want to get rid of fast and am ashamed of recommending it to my friends. I already block my Hue Bridge from accessing the internet, so that should keep it from updating so that the functionality stays the same.
Does anyone have any good app recommendations for Android? I use HA, but last time I checked you weren't able to configure the actual Hue scenes in it (and using HA scenes triggered Hue's spam limits).
I'll still probably recommend hue light bulbs with the caveat that I don't recommend their bridge/app, compared to the other bulbs I've used they are much more reliable and handle color changes much more smoothly & consistently.
I have a bunch of these switches https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/devices/TS0044.html#tuya-ts0044, and the solution of turning off the periodic battery reporting seems to have helped, I haven't had to change any of their batteries in many months. See https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt/issues/14157#issuecomm.... Not sure if something similar can be done with original Hue switches or bridge (or whether it would help there).
One different kind of switch I have, which doesn't have this problem, has had the same battery in it since I bought it 2 years ago.