Well, I chose the Hue bridge for its open API and therefore good support in OpenHAB. Also it was known, that quite a few 3rd party devices could be used with the Bridge (and thus by OpenHAB). As my main lights are of E14 socket type I cannot use the Hue bulbs, which are only available as E27 sockets. But it was no problem to pair the OSRAM Lightify E14 bulbs with the Hue bridge, until recently. 2 weeks ago Philips pushed out a firmware update for their Bridges (Gen. 1 and 2) which now actively prevents the inclusion of 3rd party devices. I was “lucky” as my setup still works, while other people reported that their existing setups stopped working. But adding other non hue devices is now impossible. If I have to reset the bridge, I will lose my setup and can not recreate it.
After this, I can only recommend NOT TO UPDATE if you own a bridge, and if you considered to buy a hue setup I strongly advise to RECONSIDER.
@Philips: this is NOT COOL. You’ve lost yourself a customer, not only for Hue devices, but also with other things.
N_Philips_Customers -=1
For reference:
Official “announcement” (post-update)