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Comment by donatj | Hacker News Reader

Lifx has an entirely open and very well documented local UDP API, and a pretty open and well documented REST API.

On top of that, no need for a bridge or base station. They can operate entirely locally with no need for a mother ship if you don't need to control them away from home.

I make pretty heavy use of the UDP API from my local server and help maintain a Go library.

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Those are WiFi though, no? Not exactly the same thing. Personally, I prefer a hub/bridge and then a mesh network for Home Automation. I’ve got Hue, Z-Wave, and WeMo. I much prefer the experience with the first two now.

It's all just different flavours of radio waves.

Frequency matters for interference, also mesh versus access point makes a big difference in the real world.

Wifi, Bluetooth, cellular, bespoke solutions, etc. are all "just radio waves" yet entail a vast spectrum of engineering and business requirements including cost, power usage, implementation complexity, reliability, interoperability, and range.

The lifx bulbs require a bridge/base station.. it just happens to be a much more ubiquitous standard: WiFi.

The Philips Hue bulbs are pretty open. I use them with a Zigbee module on a raspi with no Philips Hue hub. Ie they work fine with standard Zigbee kit. You can theoretically pair them direct to other Zigbee devices without even a controller, at the expense of flexibility.

Newer Hue bulbs also work without a bridge, now that they implement Zigbee!

The old Hue bulbs are Zigbee which is why they need a bridge. The bridgeless ones have Bluetooth.

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