OSRAM Lightify Cloud shutting down 31-Aug-2021

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FYI - I've I've received the following email as an owner of a UK Lightify Bridge:

Dear LIGHTIFY User,

Unfortunately, we have to share some bad news with you today. After five years of service, we have taken the tough decision to shut-off the LIGHTFY cloud servers on August 31st, 2021.

What you need to know now:

You still have plenty of time to react. The LIGHTIFY cloud servers will be available until August 31st, 2021. Only after this date the LIGHTIFY service and support will be discontinued.

This means, that there will be no further updates and a connection to the Amazon and Google voice assistants will not be possible anymore. Compatibility to newer versions of the iOS and Android operating systems can’t also be assured thereafter. However, until then you can use your LIGHTIFY system without limitations.

As the LIGHTIFY System is a cloud-based system, the majority of functions will unfortunately be lost and LIGHTIFY app control will be only very limited. Here Lightify App Functionalities | Light is OSRAM you can find an overview of all affected functions.

What you need to do after this period:

To control your smart lights and plugs beyond August 31st, 2021, you need to fully reset your entire system. Afterwards you can simply integrate it into any other ZigBee® compatible system – like other smart lighting or smart home systems with intelligent assistants that are available on the market.

Why is OSRAM switching off the LIGHTIFY cloud servers?

The LIGHTIFY system is meanwhile technically outdated: Its performance (e.g. in respect to reaction times when controlling devices) is significantly lower compared to other systems in the market. Furthermore, the implemented ZigBee® standard is not state of the art anymore (ZigBee® Light Link and ZigBee® Home Automation instead of ZigBee® 3.0) which makes it more and more difficult to ensure compatibility to other smart home systems. The needed investments can unfortunately not be made – especially in regard to the divestment of the general lighting end-consumer business in 2016.

We post updates regularly on our website with updated FAQs LIGHTIFY Home Support | Light is OSRAM

As always, we will try to answer all your questions which can be addressed via our usual e-mail address lightify@osram.com

Kind regards
Your LIGHTIFY Team

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Tell me again why we want local device control? :wink:

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Did @adamkempenich see this yet?

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Oh s :fire:t.

Guess I’ll have 5 months to reverse engineer the setup process.

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Actually, a bit longer...August 2021.

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There should be some form of regulation to stop companies changing or removing cloud services for a products lifetime when that impacts the functionality of a product you purchase. This is a good notice period but just annoying in concept. 10 years lifetime maybe ?

Possibly an obligation to open source protocols and reassign cloud server addresses.

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I think some of this is about market saturation. With incandescent bulbs, you were always replacing them. LED bulbs last and you don't necessarily have the volume of new sales to support ongoing services. Add to this, that your device likely has increased competition with newer devices, often at lower cost.
I don't think this is too unusual and I can see other OEMs doing similar given the huge costs of supporting devices (especially cloud connected) for longer time-frames. With no ongoing revenue from older devices, how do you support yourself. When you buy a new car, servicing may be included during the warranty period, but you eventually need to pay for maintenance,

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There is a form of regulation. Your wallet. Don't buy cloud dependent products with any assumption they will be around forever. Besides it's a light bulb. It still turns on/off when power is applied :slight_smile:

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Nice thing is those bulbs will still work just fine without the gateway. The only part I don't like is that if there is some kind of security bug, there isn't an easy way to update the firmware without the gateway. Sylvania/Osram should keep their cloud connection alive in so much as they will offer firmware updates as needed.

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Or we as consumers stop purchasing devices/hubs that are cloud dependent... in this case most Lightify devices do work independently of their gateway so while annoying not a fatal proposition for most.

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They will? Who says that they are going to offer firmware updates?

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I said they should not that they will.

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You did? That isn't how it reads to me. It reads like they should keep the cloud up to deliver the firmware updates they'll make. And I think the premise there is that there will be firmware updates when I don't think there will be. Their end-consumer products division was divested in 2016.

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It reads just fine to me. I guess I could rephrase it to say "They should keep their cloud connection alive for the specific purpose of firmware based security updates as opposed to the other functions the gateway provided."

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But there won't be security based firmware updates. So, you're saying they should also continue to develop security based firmware updates? They haven't done that for years on these products. They're still using ZLL and ZHA. They're not even Zigbee 3.0. So, I think the ship has sailed on firmware updates.

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/shrug - even Microsoft will release updates for "depricated" operating systems from time to time when the severity is high enough. I'm not suggesting that Sylvania actively put out routine firmware updates, I'm saying they shouldn't close the door on the possibility of them in the future.

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Why not? Even companies that are still making new products are not making new firmware for old products. You're assuming there will be more development work on ZHA and ZLL? There won't be. It's old. Everything is Zigbee 3.0 now. You're also assuming that some new security flaw will be found in ZHA and ZLL. They've all been discovered already because it isn't a secure protocol. So, i don't think that there's a chance, even if they did what you are asking, that it would get you anything. How many times have you seen new firmware released on zigbee devices to address a security flaw?

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The industry needs to do a better job of things. I'm not sure anyone would disagree with that. What Sylvania will do and what they SHOULD do are two different things, but they could lead by example.

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huh?, every zigbee zha and zll and 3.0 device is encrypted by default and are at lease as secure as z-wave S0 secured devices, and more secure than non secured zwave devices.

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My point is that there isn't any security flaws to be found.