I love my Philips Hue smart lights in my home and have several ways to control them. The simplest way is probably mine smartphone or a intelligent speaker or display. And for the most part, this way should be enough. But I was looking for another way to control the lights in my home that was easy and gave me more control. Now I found exactly what I was looking for, and I mainly use it exclusively to control my Hue lights.
As long as I can find other brands of smart lights now — and at much lower prices — Philips Hue is perhaps the most famous and provides a solid range of indoor and outdoor smart lighting. Whether I want my lighting to be hidden or looking for unique lights that are meant to be displayedPhilips Hue has them.
It’s not just about the light bulbs, though. The Hue line also has a large assortment of accessories. One accessory that I think is one of the best is Philips Hue Hue Tap Dial. Available in black and white for $50, the Tap Dial is a small puck-shaped light controller that you can tap and turn, giving it a “smart analog” look.
While the Philips Hue Tap Dial is not sold for black fridayit’s a solid gift for the right person, and you can still get great deals on some of the other Hue lighting options. For example, both Signe Gradient Table lamp and Sing Gradient Floor lamp are on sale at over 25% off. And if you’re looking for a more typical light bulb setup, for Black Friday, Amazon has it 3 pack of 60W A19 bulbs for only $75down from $135 (44% off). After all, you’ll need lights to control with your Tap Dial.
Don’t miss the best Black Friday deals under $100 and on Amazon’s best Black Friday deal.
At first glance, Tap Dial is an easy but expensive way to control lights
Although spending $50 on a glorified light switch might seem like a bit much, especially considering it’s almost the same price as a single Philips Hue 75W White and Color Ambiance bulb. However, if you’re like me and are firmly immersed in the Hue ecosystem, you’ve probably already come to terms with the fact that it’s an expensive ecosystem. However, the customization options on this little guy will have tinkerers excited and I believe it’s definitely worth the price.
The dial itself looks like a hockey puck with four buttons on the face, with a rotating outer wheel to increase or decrease your lights. Each of the four buttons has small dots numbered 1 to 4 so you can feel which button you are pressing even in the dark. It is relatively small and it is not a chore to carry it from room to room if you wish. You can mount it on a wall inside the included wall mount to use as a typical light switch. And it’s magnetic, so you can stick it on your fridge or other metal surface.
The customization options for Tap Dial are extensive.
Under the hood, the Tap Dial’s customization options are magnificent
You’d think that the setup for this little device would be simple, with only a few options included, but you’d be wrong. The Tap Dial settings can be a bit complicated and may require some tinkering to get right, especially if you have several scenes you want to run through.
In fact, I either completely missed the feature in the app, or in the almost two years I’ve had the Philips watch face, they’ve solved my main problem. I’m not sure which is true, but my biggest pet peeve was that I believed you could only use the Tap Dial for one room or “zone” in your home. And again, while the device may have always functioned this way, it’s now been fixed (in my opinion) and you can assign each button to a different room or area in your home. However, the twist to dim feature can only be assigned to one room at a time, which makes sense.
To set up, you’ll head to the Hue app, then go to Settings > Accessories > and select your Tap Dial. From there you can assign functions to each of the buttons. First, you’ll need to choose whether the button will control your lights or automation. If you choose the former, you will need to choose the behavior of the button when you press it:
- Time-based light: Lighting based on the time of day or based on a custom schedule of your choice.
- Stage cycle: Select a main scene that will always start when a button is pressed. Keep pressing to go through additional light scenes.
- A single scene: Always only the same scene when pressing a button.
- Lights out: The selected lights are turned off when the button is pressed.
By default, pressing and holding any of the buttons will turn off the lights assigned to it, but you can choose to turn off all the lights in your entire home or do nothing. There’s also an advanced “smart on/off” option that I haven’t dealt with yet.
Once you’ve customized the buttons to your liking, your last stop is to choose what the rotary dial does—or what it does besides brighten or dim your lights. There are only two options here, and both are easy to set up. The first is to choose whether you want to be able to turn off your lights completely with the dial, or have them dim to minimum brightness only as long as you turn them to dim them. The second allows you to set a specific scene that will turn on if you turn the dial when the lights are off.
You can make your setup as simple or complex as you like, making Tap Dial accessible to everyone.
The Hue Tap Dial makes a great gift
There’s a good chance someone won’t run out and drop a bunch of cash on Hue lights after receiving this as a gift. While Tap Dial is easy to use, the value it brings comes in the customization you can do with it. Still, you don’t have to want to go through all the settings to make Dial worthwhile. As I said above, this is an affordable device for everyone, as you can make it as simple or as complex as you want.
If you know someone who already has a Hue setup in their home, this would be a great addition. Plus, if they enjoy tinkering with settings or are self-described tinkerers, then this is definitely something worth considering. And if you’re not sure if someone has Hue lights, then the Tap Dial would make an even better gift when paired with a new bulb.
Will there be Black Friday deals on Tap Dial?
That’s hard to say. With Amazon’s Black Friday deals now in full swing and no discount looming for the Tap Dial, my guess is that it will remain firm at its $50 price point.
However, heading over to the official Philips Hue website, the Hue Tap Dial has been scaled down, but with a catch. The dial is not sold as a stand-alone item, but as combination of a selection of products. Adding every two items from the page to your cart will automatically apply a 30% discount, which isn’t bad at all. In fact, the addition of the dial tap and a standard dimmer switch to cart will only cost you about $55 with the discount. Pair the Tap Dial with a light bulb and inspire the gifted to start building their smart home.
Hungry for more? Don’t miss it this video roundup of the best Philips Hue lightswhere the Tap Dial appears so you can see it in action. And here they are smart home devices on sale for Black Friday.
