Philips cancels support for third-party lamps from Hue

Philips has implemented an update so that not all lamps that use the ZigBee protocol can no longer be added to the Hue Bridge. Lamps from manufacturers that do not fall under the ‘Friends of Hue’ program are no longer found.

The changes have also been made recently in several faqs on how to add lamps from other brands. Users on the Philips Hue developer forum were the first to discover that lamps from different brands no longer function after the update, such as lamps from Osram, LG and GE. According to Philips, it is to provide Bridge users with a guaranteed good operation, so that not all lamps based on the open ZigBee protocol will no longer function.

It seems strange that Philips has suddenly decided to block other products that use the ZigBee protocol, especially since Philips is a founder member of The Connected Light Alliance, which was founded in August 2012. This alliance was created to stimulate open standards and development around wireless lighting. Founding members include GE, Lutron, Osram, Panasonic and Toshiba in addition to Philips. The alliance now consists of about forty members.

The complaints were noticed by the German iPhone ticker and follow the announcement of more collaboration partners under the Friends of Hue program. Users who want to combine lamps from other brands that are not covered by the Friends program after the update will not be able to add them. Lamps that were added to the Bridge in the past under the old firmware will remain visible in the app, but cannot be added after a reset.