Philips Hue has confirmed a recent software update bricked some Bridge Pro devices, and the company will now replace every affected unit free of charge regardless of warranty status.
That update, numbered 2071353020, reached Bridge Pro devices in late June and added a handful of small operational improvements rather than any major new feature, according to the company itself.
Instead of those improvements, affected devices became completely unresponsive, and reports of the fault began surfacing publicly within days of the update reaching Hue’s wider user base across multiple regions.
Bridge Pro sits at the centre of Philips Hue’s ecosystem, controlling lights, sensors and automations throughout a household, which explains why a single failed update was capable of disrupting entire smart home setups at once.
According to a statement given to Ars Technica, Philips Hue explained that the bug only strikes devices where owners had disabled automatic updates and stayed on an older firmware version for an extended stretch.
Those same owners then triggered the fault by manually installing an update more than 10 days after it had first downloaded onto the Bridge, well beyond the normal installation window.
The same statement added that fewer than 100 Bridge Pro units have been affected worldwide, a relatively small number that still left every owner involved facing the same sudden loss of a working smart home hub.
Philips Hue has now confirmed that every affected Bridge Pro will be replaced free of charge regardless of warranty status, sparing owners who might otherwise have had to pay for a new unit themselves.
That response has drawn praise across owner communities on Reddit, where several threads have highlighted the replacement policy as an example of a manufacturer standing behind its hardware without hesitation or extra cost.
Replacing a bricked Bridge Pro still requires affected owners to reconfigure their lights, scenes and automations from scratch, a process that adds friction even when the hardware itself arrives free of charge.
Philips Hue has recommended that owners who have delayed installing updates and suspect their Bridge Pro could be vulnerable contact the company before attempting a manual firmware update on their own.
The company has not detailed a rollout timeline for the free replacement units, though it continues to process affected cases as further reports of bricked Bridge Pro devices come in.
