Contact Philips Hue Bridge v1 Support

I am not sure why Philips keeps taking a step back each they release a new control app. With a V1 bridge and the original app things were good, always worked, always connected and was consistent. They release the new app years ago and I did not transition as it was overly complicated. So again, this app is set the replace the other bad app and my original software. I got caught in a loop for 5 minutes of logging in and it asking to trust the app with the network. Answer yes. And do it again, and again, looping. It finally “took” after 10 attempts. Again, you get none of your settings or scenes from the old app transitioned over. I have daily 20-30 scenes that have accumulated over the lifespan of this product as I was an early adopter. This app clearly doesn’t work consistently and offers no upgrade path from the old client. It’s like I’m a new user. I have been frustrated by Philips lack of dedication to the app and I think it’s just easier to get out the ecosystem altogether now. They got too cute with the software and now it will cost them hardware sales. They have too many competitors that have cheaper hardware and you don’t have to fight their software to use them. Thanks for the run, but this app clearly shows your reign as innovator in this vertical is over.

So I leave my house this morning, and noticed my color lights are not on. I have three of the original hue color lights (not on) and 2 new white lights that ARE on. I have the original bridge. I get home at night and open the hue app and it suggests I download the new app for the older bridge. The current setup worked fine before today, but I download the app as suggested. Long story short, neither app recognizes the older color lights. They connect with the bridge, but don’t recognize the color lights. Yes, I have power cycled the bridge several times to no avail. So unless a software fix is released, this whole setup goes in the trash. And if hue support tells me to contact them via twitter or Facebook, I don’t use either. How about good ‘ol email? Or God forbid a phone! Do you actually test your software or are you truly attempting to get me to purchase a new bridge? I noticed there is a convenient link in the app to allow me to make the purchase. What a joke.

I can’t believe Philips is dropping their support for a light bulb kit that they were still selling just 5 years ago. stop pretending you care about the environment when you make us throw away perfectly good hardware because you are too lazy to support it. [edit: appreciate that I got a response to this but still disappointed that support was dropped for a 5 year old light bulb controller. This isn’t a smart phone, it’s basically a home appliance, with bulbs advertised to last 10+ years! This sort of thing will definitely set back mass market Home Automation adoption. Some discount on a new hub on being forced to update might be nice, at least! Of course there is no guarantee that v2 won’t be obsolete in a few years either... I guess that’s why some people pay the premium for Lutron... of course it’s not like Hue is cheap]