this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
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I can see the point of needing an account for a smartbulb, if you are away from home and want to turn on the lights before you arrive, it is needed.
But... Why?
I live alone in my apratment, I live in a suburb of Stockholm.
The winters gets dark in Sweden, so when I come home I open the door to a black hole, damn depressing.
But if I can turn on the lights when I am on my way home it feels as if I have someone at home waiting for me, vastly improving my mental health during the winter.
This feature alone put a smart light system in the top 5 things I have ever bought.
It is damn nice.
I get the account for a hub, but maybe if you buy like the 1 bluetooth bulb and that has to have an account, that would feel kind of dumb.
Yep, I agree fully, and the most annoyibg part is that it would be conceptually easy to get rid of all accounts and still have remote control of the system with access control.
Build the system so that the bridge gets a UUID from the Hue servers, when an app is connected to the bridge have it get the UUID and generate a token for the device.
Then when an external request comes to the Hue server authenticate it with the token and forward it to the bridge.
If you get a new device, simply connect it to the bridge as normal and you are done.
Then have a local admin password on the bridge to clear old tokens, and a nice reset switch to clear all config.
Conceptually, way easier for a user to use, and little need to store personal information on the Hue servers.
The problem is, unless you lock yourself into a single ecosystem, like hue, you need multiple apps to manage your fucking lights.
.... Or you can get home assistant or something.
I know how things work. I'm still using the hue app, but I added my hue bridge to my home assistant (running on a core i5 micro system, instead of a raspberry Pi), and I've been replacing my lights with zwave bulbs from inovelli as they break or stop working (or were just adding new lights to the system).
I'm struggling with how to grant outside access right now. Either I'm going to use zerotier or do a global redirect through a port forward or reverse proxy or something. Maybe a CloudFlare thing.... I dunno. I haven't decided, but the need to connect from outside the house is pretty small, so I'm not in a rush to make a decision.
I'll eventually get rid of hue. By comparison, the bulbs are pretty dim, but bluntly, they're pretty old now, some are starting to fail. Takes a long time for LED bulbs to fail, so it probably won't be long now.
Sure, you have a very valid point.
Also, I can see a method of setting up remote access to the system without an account.
Simply have the hue bridge report a UUID and set a token in the app when you press the button to authorize the phone.
The Hue servers accepts and forwards the request to a specified UUID as long as it is signed with an approved token.
There is a local admin password to remove individual tokens, and a nice reset button on the bridge that will clear any config and let you start again.
Sure you can use VPNs, however I may be an IT guy but I don't have the energy to deal with this stuff on my free time, I'd rather be out walking with my camera