Smart home devices don’t live forever you know, and now it’s time to bid a fond farewell to the original, 1st-gen Philips Hue Bridge launched in 2012 – the device will lose all internet connectivity on April 30, 2020.
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Philips Hue v1 Limited Support
It will still work in that it will still control your lights via the legacy Hue app. However, you won’t get any future software updates, and integration with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant will get switched off.
Philips Hue is recommending that customers upgrade to the 2nd-gen Bridge that made its debut in 2015, which will continue working and give you all the functionality you need for the foreseeable future.
If you’re not entirely clear on what the differences between the two are, the v1 Bridge is the circular one, while the v2 Bridge is the rectangular one. Both plug into a router to handle the business of controlling Philips Hue lights around a home.
End Of Life
Speaking to CNET, a spokesperson for Signify (which owns Philips Hue) said: “The 1st-gen Philips Hue Bridge no longer has the resources to guarantee the evolution of the system – from compatibility and quality, to speed and security – thus we decided to end the support for it.”
“As of April 2020 no software updates will be made available for the Hue Bridge v1 and compatibility with our online services will be terminated at that time,” the verified Philips Hue Twitter account said in response to a customer question. You’ll still be able to control the original bridge locally via its dedicated app.
The good news is that there are no plans for a new and updated Bridge yet, so version 2 of the controller device should be good for a few years at least. We’ve also recently seen Philips Hue bulbs that don’t need a Bridge at all. Philips Hue lights use Zigbee radios to communicate with the bridge, which stays plugged into your router in order to enable remote control from your phone from anywhere in the world via Philips Hue’s servers. The newest Hue lights include secondary, Bluetooth radios for simplified, close-range controls without need for a bridge at all, but a bridge is still required to access the most advanced Philips Hue features and integrations.
With so much tech packed inside our devices, it’s inevitable that this scenario is going to come up time and time again – see also Sonos – but eight years of product support seems like a reasonable period of time.
Source: www.techradar.com, www.cnet.com
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