My wife and I have a pair of matching touch sensitive bedside lamps but unfortunately they're no longer touch sensitive, so I'm looking to replace them.
I have a Philips Hue hub, and it seems to work well with the 4 white ambiance Philips bulbs I have, so thinking I'd just buy some bedside lamps, and put two of those in them. I don't want to turn them on and off with a physical switch, as once off, they're not controllable any more, so thinking I'd want a pair of remotes.
Browsing around, I've seen three dimmers that I think might work:
Hue dimmer ($29 ea Amazon.ca)
Lutron pico ($19.98 ea Amazon.ca)
Ikea Tradfri dimmer ($17.99 + shipping ea IKEA Canada)
The Hue dimmer probably makes the most sense, as I expect it will work through the Philips Hue hub. I have the Caseta hub (pro), and a Caseta dimmer and pico already working, so I expect using picos to control the hue ambiance lights is possible. I also saw a thread here about people using the tradfri dimmers with devices other than IKEA.
I'm leaning towards the pico's, as they're cheaper, and I understand they're very programmable (5 buttons, and press or press-hold programming for each, making 10 possible functions, I think!)
I'm not keen on having Alexa or Google in my bedroom, but at some point I may consider that as an additional means of control.
Any advice, feedback or suggestions?
Thanks,
Brawny
Any reason to not want the Samsung V5 Button? I think that, in the dark especially, it’s nice to just be able to reach your hand over and press it to toggle the lights. Plus 2x tap, and held actions can be used to perform other events
A Lutron Aurora could achieve this same task, too, and link directly to your hue hub if desired.
I’ll also add—I have a 4-button Lightify controller for my wife, and I have a Remotec button pad. I prefer to reach over and press a button, but she’s always opted for the Echo in our room over anything else. Even at 6 am
It paired perfectly with HE. It's small. It has 3 functions (tap, double-tap, hold), which is all I need in the bedroom, and even includes a temp sensor. I've found it to work very well.
I have an Echo Spot in the bedroom, but I don't always like talking to Alexa in the middle of the night.
Really, any of those would work. If you already have Lutron, a Pico is cheaper than a Hue Dimmer (apparently even in Canada...yay!) with the disadvantage that you're putting two systems in between it and Hue, where a Hue Dimmer could just pair directly to your Hue Bridge network (or to Hubitat if you wanted more out of it). I haven't bought any more Hue Dimmers since adding Lutron to my system since the Picos have swayed me, and I even wrote a custom app to mimic the functionality of a Hue Dimmer with a Pico on Hubitat. The Trådfri Dimmer is probably the least attractive option, since you can only TouchLink it to one or more Hue Bridge bulbs, I think after first TouchLinking it to the Bridge itself. You don't get any control over what it does in the Hue app or via any other means than what it's pre-programmed to do. But I guess it is the cheapest, and it would also work directly to Hue without any middlemen.
The Lightify 4-button mentioned above was also on sale for insanely cheap (at least in the US) once, so I have a couple of those too. They look nothing like a switch but are nice if you know what you're doing, and they have a magnetic mount so could work well on the base of a lamp.
I vote for the smartthings button. I use them for my bedside lamps. Both lamps are metal, and the magnetic button sits on the base of each lamp. I use one touch to turn on the individual lamp, double tap turns on all the lights in the bedroom and I use the press and hold to light my way to the backyard so I can let my old dog out in the middle of the night (also lights the back yard). You could always set one of the press settings to have the light come on at a preset dim level. And they’re super cheap and report temperature.
Another vote for the Smartthings buttons. I have regular everyday pedestrian nightstand lamps, with Hue white ambiance bulbs in them. I have automated evening light ups via RM, and a button in each side of the bed that either turns both lamps on, or dims them off.
Mrs and I love them. For the price, it's hard to beat the Samsung buttons!
I also use them on our bedside tables. We both have dual Picos as well but the Samsung button is easy to find in the dark and hit it with your hand, arm, elbow, whatever. One click turns on the light for that side of the bed, double click turns on both bedside lights, press and hold turns off all the bedroom lights, the walk-in closet and the master bath. It just leaves any fans running.
I use quite a lot of the Hue dimmers.
Some connected to the Hue bridge other direct to HE.
I really like these and use them for volume controls as well as dimming lights.
(I usually stick them up with ‘bluetack’ so I can move them about if I want)
I’m just about to set a couple up to work with my ikea blinds
(when I cut the damned things down so I can get them to fit!)
Another vote here for the ST buttons. In two rooms in our house, I have a pair of them set up this way: single push controls the nearest lamp, double click controls the other lamp, and a long press controls them both.
Reason for my choice - we have a Google mini, and I have Siri on my phone. Figured I'd kick the tires with Alexa as well to see which I like better. No experience with Alexa yet, so worth investigating.
Also - we have the Lutron hub, and I like the one pico I already have for our family room overhead light, connected to a Caseta dimmer. Having 5 programmable buttons gives lots of possibilities.
If I don't like the pico's in the bedroom, I'm sure I'll be able to repurpose them in the future, as I plan to add a bunch more Caseta dimmers and switches throughout the house.
