More reason for local control. Otherwise you are only renting.
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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.
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I saw that, but examples like this and what other companies like Sonos and Sony have done recently furthers my belief that manufacturers need to guarantee life of service when purchasing. Just because you feel the service is no longer viable what gives the right to limit or remove the level of service I purchased without remuneration.
Notice they did not even say the product would work with Zigbee systems. They just treat their customers as organisms to be exploited.
To be fair they (we 
) aren’t really their customers any more. OSRAM span off their lamps business in 2016 and it became LEDvance (which was bought by a Chinese consortium - IDG, MLS, Yiwu - in 2017) which retained the rights to use the OSRAM/Sylvania brands on lamps but I believe the Lightify ecosystem remained with OSRAM GmBH.
The newer SMART+ devices (the ones with QR codes on them) are ZigBee 3.0. The older Lightify stuff is ZLL/ZHA (doesn’t have the right HW to upgrade either) and there’s no real commercial benefit to running the Lightify cloud never mind updating it. (That’s not really specific to Lightify either.)
LEDvance test with a handful of ZigBee vendors (among them Samsung SmartThings and Amazon Echo), but there’s a slightly smaller list of vendors paid up to pass through firmware updates (I think SmartThings at least may be missing from that list).
For what it’s worth, after 31st August basic Lightify functions should still work via the app/gateway for lights and switches (on/off, dim/temp/colour, static effects) but you won’t be able to add/delete things and sensors won’t do anything useful. The openHAB Lightify gateway binding should still work - and should even be able to drive dynamic effects since it doesn’t pull them from the cloud (but I haven’t tested that yet).
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If that made it to their open source code tree that could be useful.
Sorry for hijacking the thread, but what did Sonos do recently?
I’m asking because I’m considering buying a Sonos speaker, largely for the good(?) OH2 integration.
With Osram’s announcement of discontinuance of cloud support, I have begun to transfer to openHAB, currently using my Osram Lightify Gateway. I have an inventory of Osram Lightify bulbs that have not yet been paired with the gateway, so I ask:
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Should I pair every unused bulb in my inventory with the Osram Lightify Gateway with the understanding that pairing can only be achieved by the cloud?
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Should I abandon the Osram Lightify Gateway and adopt a USB Zigbee stick such as the Conbee II?
Would there be any loss of bulb features with approach #2?
I have read that Lightify bulbs employ Zigbee Light Link in the EU, and differ from the bulbe sold in the US, which employ Zigbee Home Automation. (I am in the US)
I have two separate WiFi’s and I am willing to capture packets to and from the cloud, gateway and phone, should that help with the Osram/Lightify Gateway Binding project.
Special thanks to you, Christoph, and all contributors to openHAB and the Osram/Lightify Gateway Binding project.
I have about two thirds of my older Lightify and newer SMART+ lamps paired to a Bitronvideo ZigBee stick now. They work like any other ZigBee lamp. (To be honest I’d forgotten about the remaining lamps - their smarts aren’t really used)
What I would say is that it may be better to not pair things to the old Lightify gateway unnecessarily. As long as it lets you delete things it’s fine - they’ll drop back into pairing mode and a ZigBee scan finds them. But if for any reason it stops letting you delete things or the app gets withdrawn or breaks then you’d have to do the off-on-off-on-… dance to reset them. Which is annoying for those of us that can’t count 5 groups of 3 & 3 without getting distracted and, in my experience, frequent switching like that can be the trigger for failure (about 15% for me although they were the older Lightify models so SMART+ may be better).
Mike
Thank you for the quick reply Mike.
Searching for the Bitron Video Zigbee stick here in the US leads me to conclude that it is a European oriented device. Here we have the Nortek HUSBZB-1 available. The two devices seem similar.
If you don’t object, are you in Europe?
I am unsure whether geographic region matters with the pre-Zigbee 3.0 Lightify bulbs. However, for example, several seemingly knowledgeable posts appear on the web state that Lightify bulbs in the EU employ ZLL (Zigbee Light Link) and successfully pair with Philips Hue Gateway, whereas Lightify bulbs in the US employ ZHA (Zigbee Home Automation) are incompatible. I have not purchased a Philips Hue Bridge to verify this.
So far, I have done the bulb factory reset three or four times, with no failures.
I will follow your advice and purchase a USB Zigbee stick. I just need to find out which one.
Trevor
Yes, I’m in the UK. The openHAB ZigBee binding docs list supported coordinators, both the Bitron and the HUSBZB-1 are on there (and they’re both based on the Ember chipset). ZHA shouldn’t be an issue - the ZigBee binding should support anything that is ZigBee compliant (and tries its best with anything with “unfortunate” incompatibilities).
Mike
Mike-
Thank you again for your informative response. I will report back on my progress.
I really expected more discussions on the Internet concerning the Lightify cloud shutdown!
Trevor