![]() ![]() That's much better than using the normal switch, which will leave your smart bulbs unpowered and unreachable whenever it's switched off. Doing so makes for a really good, kid-friendly smart lighting hack: The face of the Tap, which is a button itself, can toggle the lights on and off, while the three smaller buttons can each trigger a favorite preset. The puckish Hue Tap works well as a handheld remote, but you can also stick the base plate that comes with it to the wall, then dock the thing as a makeshift light switch when you aren't carrying it around. If only my TV remote worked the same way. The whole process is completely separate from your Wi-Fi network, which makes for terrific performance on a platform as stable as Hue's.Īnd again, the thing is literally finger-powered. From there, the Bridge relays the lighting change to your Hue bulbs with another Zigbee transmission. One reason for the speedy performance: The Hue Tap transmits your button-based input directly to the Hue Bridge using a low-power Zigbee signal. It's never failed us, and it always toggles the lights without any lag at all. Seriously.Ĭase in point: the CNET Smart Apartment, where we control the bedroom lights using the very same Hue Tap that I first reviewed four years ago. It's a kinetic, self-powering device that generates its own energy from your button-presses. In fact, it doesn't have any batteries at all. The first thing you need to know about the Hue Tap is that you'll never need to worry about changing the battery. The Hue Tap needs no batteries - it's self-powering, and generates its own kinetic energy each time you press a button. In fact, at $50, I'd go so far as to call it one of the most underrated smart home gadgets you can currently buy. ![]() First out in 2014, it's ancient in smart-home years, but it's always been a favorite of mine - and it's only gotten better since it first came out. Sometimes, it's just nice to press a button.īetter yet, how about four buttons? The four I'm thinking of belong to the Philips Hue Tap, a wireless remote for Philips Hue smart lights that predates the Amazon Echo and the rise of smart-home voice controls that came with it. Today's smart home is dominated by ever-evolving voice controls, privacy anxieties, a confusing mish-mash of wireless protocols and constant jockeying between the platforms competing to rule it all. ![]()
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