tl;dr
- Bought the Pico Remotes w/ SmartBridge Pro and love them!
- Tried the Lutron Aurora, but returned it because I don't have toggle switches
- Tried the Sengled Smart Light Switch, hated it, and returned it
Detailed Review
Thanks everyone for the suggestions! I ended up getting the Pico remotes and love them!
I also bought the Lutron Aurora's to test out and will detail my findings about these below.
Button feel
Pico
The Pico remotes are much more tactile then the Sengled remote. The Pico remote has a good amount of travel in the button press, so you feel when the button is pressed, whereas the Sengled has little to no travel in the button press. This leads to the Sengled having that mushy button press I described. Yes, the Pico doesn't have the same "click" as a paddle switch, but it is definitely what I'd describe as tactile. You know that you've pressed it.
Sengled
On the other hand, the Sengled remote is so mushy that you don't even know if you've pushed it. I even had some instances where I saw the green indicator LED light up on the remote, but no button press was triggered. I think this was if I didn't press hard enough. You really have to give your press some oomph to make sure it registers.
Responsiveness
Pico
The response time on the Pico is much quicker. I noticed that the Pico remotes have two different drivers you can choose from: Lutron Fast Pico
or Lutron Pico
. The latter gives you all 10 button pushes (the normal 5 and then 5 more with each button having a held state). But because the remote has to wait to see if you held the button or not it's a bit slower to respond. This is where the "fast" driver comes into play. It only has the 5 button presses available so it reacts instantly. I've stuck with the "fast" driver for now.
Sengled
The Sengled button controller driver didn't have any sort of option (at least as far I could tell). I asked about it in this thread and got no reply. So it's on/off buttons had a delay that was really annoying. Compound this with its mushy buttons and you have no certainty of knowing if you clicked the button or not. Meaning you have to awkwardly wait for a second to see if the lights come on, not great when you're just trying to quickly go into a dark room to grab something and then leave.
Mounting
I didn't want to go with a more "permanent" solution like getting in-wall switches because we plan to move out to a bigger place at some point in the near future. I was really keen on something that was easy to temporarily mount so that we could take it and go when we move out.
I'm using the Mitzvah paddle switch cover to make sure no one turns off the switch to the smart bulbs in the house.
So I wanted to mount whatever switch I got on top of these. I got the idea to use these magnets from Smart Home Solver's video and this article.
Sengled
The Sengled remote's magnet was decently strong, but it has a hump for the battery cover that makes it not sit flush with the Mitzvah covers. I don't have an actual picture, but you can see it from this pic from the manual and the marketing shot of its baseplate:
This made it so when you try to push a button the remote rocks off the magnets on the Mitzvah. I had to use double sided tape to really secure it to the Mitzvah.
Pico
The Pico on the other hand has really strong magnets and a flat backside so it sits super flush and perfectly with the Mitzvah. I didn't even need to super glue the magnets for the Remote to stay firmly on the Mitzvah. I used the same double sided tape as well just in case, but I don't think it's actually necessary. Here are some of my pics:
Lutron Aurora
As I don't have the old style toggle switches, I didn't get to actually try this out. Though my wife did love these the most because of the solid easy big single click. And the rotate to dim is brilliant as well. I was considering trying to super glue the base onto the Mitzvah, but in the end decided against that because it seemed like a janky solution.
Summary
The Pico remotes are great and I'm glad I made the investment to get the $150 SmartBridge Pro because we can get the Lutron Caseta dimmers at our next house! Definitely recommend to anyone that wants a fast, mountable, and tactile solution.
The Lutron Aurora seems like a really great option for anyone that has toggle switches.
I would not recommend the Sengled remotes as on-wall switch replacements to anyone. If you plan on using them solely as handheld remotes, then that may be alright. But because how firmly you have to press the buttons to get them to register it doesn't work that well for a switch that you want to easily be able to press when you walk into a room.
There aren't any reviews on the Sengled remote at the time of posting that I could find, so I definitely bought these as an experiment. I hope this review can spare someone else the time with these cheap remotes, because remember: you always get what you pay for.