In the past, few services made it mandatory to sign in with an account to use them but these days, fewer and fewer companies allow users to forgo signing up if they want to use certain products or services. Philips Hue was one of the holdouts that didn’t require accounts to use their excellent smart lights and bulbs, but that privacy-friendly policy is going away.

Philips Hue has reserved this account-free prerogative for years until recently when it decided to up its security policy. While you thought you would be safe without creating an account with the smart home company, you will soon be getting a “more secure” way of controlling your lights and bulbs, as spotted by Hueblog.com. A new banner is appearing for app users informing them about the upcoming change, with a vague “starting soon” timeline.

Philips Hue explains its intentions on social media platform X (formerly Twitter). While the company remained silent on the exact date of the implementation of the policy, the X post suggests that the changes are imminent.

The company is met with a lot of backlash about the decision on X. Users are complaining that they chose Philips Hue precisely because it didn’t require an account to use, and question how this is supposed to make the system more secure, with them arguing that keeping devices local only and not connected to the internet at all would be the best solution for security.

It looks like Hue’s aim is to get into the data collection arena full throttle, even if the company claims it’s for security reasons. It’s likely that Philips Hue wants to earn more money with additional premium features, and the best way to do that is by making sure that its customers already have an account at their disposal.

Just recently, the company announced some home security devices along with premium features like cloud video storage. Meanwhile, another mainstream update of the company focuses on Festavia Lights. Users can now activate lighting effects through Hue’s app. While these premium features weren’t originally accessible without an account, it looks like even the most basic operations of the app will require users to sign up in the future.