Amazon stops the smart lighting skill from Sengled

After having repeatedly leaving customers without intelligently controlling their lights, Sengled was started from Amazon Works with the Alexa program. As reported for the first time by TechnicalFrom August 1, the Alexa of Sengled competence to control its Line of lights, traffic jams, switches and LED sensors With your voice and your routines is no longer available.

In a declaration at The penis Explaining the decision, Amazon spokesperson Lauren Raemhild, said: “We are organizing a high bar for the Alexa experience. Sengled has experienced a series of prolonged breakdowns in recent months that have not been resolved, preventing customers from being able to use the Alexa of Sengled competence to control their bulbs. ”

The future does not seem brilliant for Sengled, which has been silent since the problems began to appear earlier this summer. There seems to have been No communication with customers of the company (Amazon Handmade hand to its customers on breakdowns), and no indication of these problems on its website. Repeated attempts by The penis To contact Sengled has not been encountered unanswered.

There are good news. If you have Sengled bulbs that use ZigBee, ble mesh, or Matterrather than with Wi-Fi, they can always work with Alexa by bypassing the spotted servers of Sengled and connecting to a Compatible Echo School or Wi-Fi Eero router (This may require putting them back in place). Another option is to Connect the zigbee bulbs to the third-party platform poles Who support the protocol, such as the home assistant, the Hubitat or the Hub Aeotec SmartThings.

But if your bulbs were Wi-Fi from Sengled, you are unlucky. These will not connect to Alexa, although they will always work with the application of Sengled, as long as the servers of Sengled still work. Users started Reporting problems thereAlso. All this shows that relying on the cloud services to turn on your lights is a fragile solution.

This is a story that we have seen Too often in the smart house. Last month, Belkin closed his Wemo Smart Home BusinessAnd the house intelligent cemetery is strewn with other examples: ihome,, RevealedStaples Connect, Lowes Iris,, Best Buy badgeand more.

A common thread with these stops is that the products were based on cloud servers. At one point, it was easier and cheaper for a company to develop a cloud -based controller than a local system, because it does not require hub or bridge And can be easier to configure and use.

However, companies must maintain these servers, as well as API connections with intelligent house platforms and vocal assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant, which can be expensive and highly intensity of resources. When the corporate model no longer takes place, history shows us that if it cannot sell it, companies have simply closed it.

This brings me to my best advice to anyone buying an intelligent home device today, in particular something as integrated as lighting: make sure it has the possibility of controlling local control. In this way, if the company passes or ceases to provide the service for which you have registered, your device will continue to operate (in one way or another). In addition, locally controlled devices tend to be faster because they don’t have to wait a response from a server.

As indicated, some senglée bulbs are not based on a cloud connection and can rather operate locally in your home. Thanks to a connection via local protocols such as Apple Homekit or Zigbee, certain products from these companies listed above also work, even if their servers have disappeared.

This is one of the reasons why the new The standard of material is so crucial for the smart home. Although he has had his problemsMatter is built on the foundations of Homekit, Zigbee and other technologies. It is a completely local protocol, communicating with a material controller (HUB) in your home, not at the cloud of a company.

Although ecosystems of material such as Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa and the home assistant can connect to the cloud to give control when you are far from your home and activate other features such as voice assistants, it is a layer in addition to the material. If a device like an intelligent bulb takes charge of importance, either on Wi-Fi or the wire, you do not need the internet to turn on the lights. And, if the manufacturer’s server dies, your device will not.

Material is not the only option here. The devices that operate on ZigBee, Z-Wave, Ble and Mash and Local Wi-Fi also offer local control. But standardization of material, its broad support from the industry and its use of non -owner IP protocols and threads all widen its global compatibility and should make it more waterproof in the future.

The situation with Sengled is only the last reminder only for a really reliable smart house, look for local control. Although the cloud offers advantages, it should be part of your solution for a smarter house, not the only one.