https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016YTTIVW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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That Kitchler is almost 3x the price of those RGBGenie ones, and has less buttons...
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ya rgbgenie is on backorder and for anyone that has experience and likes minimotes or wants zwave instead of zigbee it is an option.. in fact i said it is pricy.
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Appreciate all the input. So let's see - style, yeah the palm pad is certainly dated and unattractive - but cheap and very functional and easily labelled.
Tablets - yes, an option - but pricier and need to be kept charged, and apps updated and new incompatibilities dealt with.
And the truth is - hitting a button is always faster than unlocking a screen , navigating to the right menu or dashboard, etc. Not to say I don't enjoy those - but sometimes, you just want to do something quickly.
I'm a bit surprised by the folks who say you can just do more automation...I have plenty of sensors and I'm happy to program all kinds of algorithms - but I haven't found any sensors or apps that know what mood I'm in or whether I want it brighter or dimmer, overhead light or over my shoulder, etc.
One thing I have not done is used Alexa this way - I've been very hesitant to let the cloud into my home automation. I try to keep it all as local as possible - I do not want Amazon or Google to know my every move, my daily activity, when I go to bed, etc. You're right - if I did that, it would solve a lot of these issues.
The RGBGenie remote has potential though.
I guess you guys haven't watched as many dystopian future movies as I have....couple episodes of Black Mirror and you really want to reconsider opening up your life too much to those folks.
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You just described Scenes. You can have a bunch of preset Scenes, and use a button to pick one. Granted you can't individually adjust a particular bulb with scenes, but they are a great starting point for things like this.
- You can have a TV scene that turns on and dims certain lights when the TV comes on by watching TV power consumption or via one of the apps for TV or Roku or whatever.
- You could have a Scene that sets a bunch of lights one way when it is cloudy, and another Scene when it is sunny.
- I have a scene that turns on the garage lights, outdoor lights, front hall light, at various levels when the garage door opens.
There are dozens of other ways to use Scenes, some could be automatically triggered like my garage door, and others you could use a button, phone, Alexa, press of a light switch, or whatever to activate it.
I don't use the phone often, but it can be helpful when you don't want to be shouting to Alexa, or you aren't near your button device. I don't carry buttons around the house, they stay on their table or mounted to the walls.
You shouldn't leave your phone dead like that, you never know when you may need it. It could be a health emergency, fire, or because the spose got into a car accident.
Love dystopia. Some of my favorites are Solyent Green, 1984, Blade Runner, Logans Run, THX1138, 2001/2010, Terminator, Alien, and so on. I am sure I am missing a bunch there...
I do have an Alexa, but I use it sparingly. And I never talk about stuff near those devices that prying ears shouldn't hear.
Yes - I'm well aware! Been doing this for a couple decades. So that takes us full circle - buttons to trigger scenes! And I'd like to have more than 4. Thus my search for a remote. 
I realize I said I wanted to be able to dim as well. But I'd still like to find a more modern remote with more than 4 buttons.
Can the RGBGenie remote actions be accessed via hubitat? I assumed they were dedicated remotes for that brand of lighting products.
Now you're talking! Been building up a collection on my Plex server. Are you a Letterboxd subscriber? Highly recommended.
Yup - I keep my echo devices on mute often - which makes them less useful to be sure - but the number of times my echo dot has turned on when I was talking about other things can be unnerving. Even if you trust Jeff Bezos (which I do not), what could be a more attractive hacking target?
One other piece of this is that other members of the household are much less comfortable with all the apps, so a clearly labelled remote is very useful.
You might look at the Remotec ZRC-90US which is a handheld remote with 8 buttons.
Or the Nexia NX1000 which has 15 programmable buttons and can do push, held or release with Hubitat support.
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You would probably like something like this
Most Aqara devices are problematic on Hubitat, my understanding is this one (made by Opple for Xiaomi) is not a problem, once you get past the weird pairing procedure. I have mine paired to Home Assistant and I automate shared Hubitat switches on HA to use it with HE automations.
Unlike what you may only be used to, each button can have multiple press and hold functions.
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Reviving the thread.... and noob warning.
Is it possible to create a rule in the HE Rules Engine that says something like, "If button A is pushed on the Z-Wave remote, take an action on a Zigbee device"?
Use case is that we have a small number of Zigbee dimmers and plugs that we want to have the option to use a remote instead of a phone. For example, we have recirculating hot water, and we turn off the recirculating pump when we don't need instant hot water ... when the need arises where we need instant hot water when the pump is usually off, we would like to turn it on via remote (we don't always keep our phones with us).
The reason for the question is that the remotes referenced in the thread are all listed as Z-Wave remotes. However, in reearching the question I have not found an article that conclusively states whether HE has an internal Z-Wave/Zigbee bridge to allow this use case to work.
Thanks!
I'm using Aeotec WallMote Quad Z-Wave Plus. Yes they have 4 buttons, but you can click, long click, top swipe and bottom swipe. So this is like 16 buttons. I like them.
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Welcome to the Hubitat forums!
Absolutely. Any button device can via a rule do something . I use Lutron Pico remotes to control the Wink Hampton Bay Fan Controller (Zigbee), for example.
Well it isn't like you are describing it exactly, so I am sure your search is coming up empty.
- The Hubitat has a Zwave and a Zigbee radio and even a LAN (ethernet) port that can be used to integrate devices like Lutron Caseta/Pico among others.
- You have rules like Basic Rules, and apps like Button Controller to "bridge" these various protocols together. But nobody really describes it as a "Bridge".
- You have the ability to tie Zigbee to Zigbee, Zigbee to Zwave, Zwave to Lutron, Lutron to Zigbee, and so on. There isn't a restriction as to what protocol you are using.
So long story short, yes your use-case will work just fine.
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Now me, I would consider using motion sensors to automate this. They could serve double purpose and turn on lights as well as the circulation pump.
I need to get a pump, but am holding out until plumbing supplies and pipe is back to somewhat normal as I will need about 100 foot of copper, and some check valves to make it work in my setup. So I can't say that this would be better than a button, but it would potentially be more automatic without running the pump 24/7 or just on a dumb timer.
Oh, and here is an example of the Zigbee fan controlled by a Lutron Pico. Nothing special to see here, you just pick the devices and what you want to do, but this is what you will end up mimicking to some extent. Most everything is just dropdown menus.
Thank you for this and the examples!
A bit of history to show why this is important. In a house we built a couple of decades ago, we initially had the water pump running continuously. Then we added a dumb appliance timer, and the timer paid for itself in less than 2 months with the savings in the gas needed to heat the water. We switched to X10, which saved even more because we could precisely control the on/off cycles, yet use the remote control to adjust for those inevitable situations when you need the hot water but the pump is off.
The X10 setup followed us to the current house.
In the current house, we added an aqua-stat to the X10 system to control timing and to reduce the total run time of the pump. Worked well for years until the X10 controller failed recently.
Following up - thank you, @neonturbo and @jbilodea ! We just set up 2 of the Kichler remotes and your comments made it very easy.
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I recently purchased one of these, and it's complete piece of garbage. It works well enough if you don't mind putting in a new CR2032 battery on a daily basis. I thought it would be good for others to know this particular experience.
