zlacker

>>pictur+(OP)
Rachel nailed it, as usual. I was an early adapter and have a houseful of Hue stuff, but over the last year or so I've switched to buying Nanoleaf bulbs. Hue is a little nicer, but not enough to make their terrible app worth the hassle.

I've seen a few recommendations now for the Ikea Dirigera hub, so fine. I've ordered one. Assuming it works as expected, I'll migrate everything next week. So long, Philips. I liked your stuff, but why'd you have to get greedy? Was being twice the price of your competition not enough?

>>kstrau+W3
As an electronics guy with both backend and frontend programming experience for me there are three routes when it comes to my home infrastructure:

1. Buy something dumb, non-smart, non-cloud

2. Build it myself

3. Buy something that can be hacked and used with my own infrastructure

The problem isn't even their infrastructure, it is that they decide when they want to change it. Even if it was all good faith changes, that could be a reliability issue and force me to dedicate time to the issue on their whim. I don't like that. If I run such things myself I can decide myself when to update and how much time I want to invest when (provided the system is decoupled from the public internet).

And this point isn't even about any single company trading the good will of their customers bit by bit — it is just about me not having to jump when their service changes or ends for whatever reason (and there are many).

>>atoav+eH
My only remaining smart device is an off brand smart bulb on my front porch. It is set up to turn on at 6PM and off at 6AM. It disconnected from my network years ago, but has kept working great nonetheless. I think of it like a Mars probe going about its business. :-)