New RunLessWire Click switches/dimmers for Philips Hue

I just got an e-mail from Hue this morning announcing a new Hue-compatible product, the Click for Philips Hue: Philips Hue Page – RunLessWire

This is a "Friends of Hue" product that can be paired to your Hue network and configured via the mobile Hue app like, I assume, the first-party Tap and Dimmer. I suspect it could also be paired to a ZHA network like Hubitat and used similarly to the Hue Dimmer, but I'm unlikely to buy one just to find out. It costs $60 USD, over over twice as much as the similar Hue Dimmer with what I see as only a few advantages: I assume each side can control different lights/rooms if you want, and it fits in a standard decorator plate (the Hue Dimmer is a bit too large). It also looks a bit more like a standard, albeit bifurcated, decorator switch, though the Dimmer is close and probably equally intuitive.

Plus, I'm on Hubitat and I already have something I can fit into a standard decorator plate and make control Hue lights or whatever I want for a fraction of the price: Pico remotes. :slight_smile: (Though if I'm only using them for Hue lights, I confess being paired to the Hue network makes Hue devices like the Dimmer and presumably also this device a bit snappier...)

Sadly, I have a feeling that like the Tap, it won't be compatible with HE.

You might be right, I guess they're both human-powered and not battery-powered, so they have that in common, and the Tap uses a different kind of Zigbee payload Hubitat does not (at least currently) support, or at least I seem to remember that was the issue.

I'm not sure I'd consider it sad, though, since these puppies are $60 and there are a variety of cheaper button devices that do work natively with Hubitat. Heck, two of these would be enough to buy you a Smart Bridge Pro and at least two Pico remotes from Energy Avenue. :slight_smile: But I guess it might be nice to have natively supported, decorator-style Zigbee buttons.

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Picos are WAY more functional anyhow. I don't know who Philips is targeting with this product, but upon closer inspection, it reminds me of this with a different asthetic. LOL

Confession: I have two of those. I tried to sell them on eBay after using them for a bit when I rented. One of them had zero bidders; the other one had a low bid from a buyer who refused to pay. I ended up keeping them (not that I had a choice when I could barely give them away if I tried) and try to repurpose them somehow. I saw a project someone did here with one of those auxiliary switches for Z-Wave switches/dimmers, so I'm thinking maybe "use" it (sans battery) and wire their contacts (if I can find them) to a SmartThings Button to use as a giant, light-switch-covering Zigbee switch for switches that control smart bulbs. :slight_smile:

I'll give Switchmate this, though: their devices are the prettiest of all the over-the-switch devices (compared to the Ecolink TLS-ZWAVE5 and the RealitySwich, for example). The RunLessWire product above is at least just a Zigbee switch, not a Lockitron v2 (anyone else get one of those?) of switches like the above, albeit one we currently don't know anything about the payloads of.

totally powered by the press of the button

Now that is interesting at least.

If it lasted a very long time, I suppose the price could make up for batteries or electricity. We might live on Mars by then though.

I have purchased a couple of the runlesswire switches. I would give them 4.5 out of 5 stars. They integrate into the Hue hub very well. I used them in locations where the switch was turning on power to Hue Lights like under and over cabinet lights replaced with Hue light strips. Each switch can control 4 actions plus dimming of 2 settings.

The only reason for taking off .5 stars is that the action of pressing the switch creates enough of an electrical charge to activate the Zigbee connection to the Hue hub. You have to press the switch with purpose to get it to work the first time. If you aren’t firm with the press it doesn’t generate enough electrical current to connect the Zigbee.

It would be great if the runlesswire switches could be integrated into HE to be a trigger for other actions beyond beyond the Hue Lights. I would like to add a couple of Lutron switches into the rule.

This came across my attention again. Anyone tried to pair this to Hubitat or have any idea whether it would work? I just saw a question answered by the manufacturer on the Amazon page: Amazon.com: Customer Questions & Answers

Question: Can this act as a Zigbee input for SmartThings?
Answer: Click for Hue switches transmit standard ZigBee Greenpower messages which is part of the ZigBee 3.0 standard. It is our understanding that ZigBee 3.0 support is coming to SmartThings and that it does not work now but might in the future.

If ZigBee 3.0 support is available, the Click for Hue can be configured to transmit on 1 of 4 ZigBee channels by holding one of the buttons for >10 seconds. Button to channel mapping is:

Button 1 : lower left (BO) - ZigBee Channel 11
Button 2: lower right (AO) - ZigBee Channel 15
Button 3: upper right (AI) - ZigBee Channel 20
Button 4: upper left (BI) - ZigBee Channel 25

-RunLessWire [Seller] β€’ January 31, 2019

So...it looks like will only transmit on the ZLL channels, or at least that's the only way you can make it use a specific channel (not sure if it can fall back to ZHA and use whatever channel that network is on).

At this price I wouldn't necessarily gravitate towards this, but it comes in a variety of colors that the Hue Dimmer doesn't (only white) or are harder to find or more expensive on the Picos (the white and usually light almond ones are cheap, but everything else tends to cost a lot more, to say nothing about the cost of the Bridge if you're not already using the system). And it's now clear that it can mount in a box or on the wall (still not sure if it can mount over an existing switch without rewiring...) and comes with all necessary hardware for either, so it's not quite as bad as I thought. Tempted to get one for my friend who doesn't have the Lutron Bridge and would like black switches to match the rest. :slight_smile: (But not that tempted since he doesn't have a Hue Bridge to fall back on if this doesn't pair to Hubitat.)

I have a few of these in rooms that have Hue BR30 lights. I just removed the switch and wired the it on. The RunLessWire switches work pretty well. I liked the fact that I can set them up for specific scenes. I do run all my Hue lights thru the Hue Hub and just use the cloud integration of into HE. The only issue I have is the status of the Hue lights don't update when they are changed by the RunLessWire switches (or on the Hue App). Causes issues with Dashboard / SharpTools reflecting the correct status.

So I tried to hold down the button that corresponds to the channel that my HE is on, but no luck when I was in Zigbee discovery mode. Curious if anyone else has had success...

Given that it says "Zigbee Green Power," which Hubitat doesn't support, I guessed that the odds are slim, and forcing it to pair on your ZHA channel was probably the only shred of hope that remained. Sorry to hear that it didn't work!

Pico remotes cost a little more but are awesome and also come in other colors. This is what I sold a friend on before he went with Hue anyway and could have just used this (as you still can on the Hue system via the Bridge).

Ahh, got it. Thanks! Any idea if this will be supported in the future?

Only staff can say for sure, but if I had to guess, I wouldn't count on it happening any time soon. (But Hubitat does have a lovely Hue Bridge integration, so you can always use this device to control your lights on a Hue Bridge but also get the Hue lights--not this device specifically, as "sensor"-type devices aren't supported--into Hubitat so you can still automate them.)