This interesting little circular device
that sits on my shelf in the living room
is actually a light switch.
And in my opinion, this is, by far,
the coolest light switch I have ever seen.
So check it out,
this is the Philips Hue Tap.
Okay, let me just say right off the bat
that, since this is a Hue branded product,
it will only work inside the Hue ecosystem.
So that means, in order to make use of this product,
you will need at least one Hue bulb, and one bridge.
Diving right into the product,
you will immediately notice that
there are three circular buttons on the front.
These are buttons two, three, and four,
but there are actually four buttons on this switch.
The first button is the whole fact itself.
These four buttons are programmable.
You can set them to switch your bulbs to different scenes,
and each one of these buttons can have their own unique scenes.
So, say you have button one to turn on your lights
to their usual colour,
you can program it so that button two turns it off.
And then maybe button 3 will turn them all blue...
The possibilities are endless.
What's more interesting than the programmable scenes,
is what's available inside Hue Labs.
Now, you can access Hue Labs via your computer
and connect it to the bridge,
but recently they added Hue Labs to the app via an update.
So if you have the updated version of the app,
you can access Hue Labs from there.
Hue Labs have a number of experimental features that involve the Hue Tap,
but the two I use are the dimmer and the toggle.
Toggle is straight forward, basically,
you press the button, it toggles the light on.
You press it again, and it toggles it off.
The reason why this is not a feature right out of the box
is just due to the way that the Tap works
Hopefully, it will be included in an update in the future,
but for now, you can access it via Hue Labs.
The dimmer feature allows you to toggle through
intervals of brightness using one button alone.
I think there are four intervals
and you can set these up yourself.
By default, it goes from 100% to 75%
to 50, and then 25, and then 0 before it cycles through again.
Now, unfortunately, I think this is due to that the way this switch is built,
but sometimes when I press a button, it doesn't work or it produces an effect.
Like I would press button #3, and then it would toggle button #1.
The switch comes with a cradle, which can be mounted to any surface
using the holes that you can drive a screw through.
Or via the 3M adhesive command strips on the back.
You see, on the back of the switch,
there are no wires.
That's because this is not meant to replace your traditional light switch.
It's meant to work alongside it.
Now, you can easily dock your tap
by simply twisting into the cradle.
Like that.
Reverse that to undock it.
And you can use it like a remote.
The range on the switch,
well, I can't say much about it because I live in a condo
and it's not very big in here, but I can pretty activate it forom any corner of the house.
Once it's docked, youI can pretty much use it like a light switch on the wall.
Except I have it on my shelf here, which is why I think it's so cool.
The buttons all have a pretty long travel distance.
What that enables this device to do,
is when you tap down on it,
There is enough movement to generate a little bit of electricity
that would send a signal out from the Switch.
So this thing does not require batteries.
That is awesome!
Philips has another switch that costs a little less and
and it's a little less capable,
but what I think separates this switch the most
is just... Due to the fact that this doesn't require a battery,
and that one requires a coin cell battery
that you have to replace every now and again.
This one, you can just install it, and forget about all the maintenance.
And I think it is that feature
that makes this the coolest light switch in my opinion.
So, currently my setup looks like this.
The main switch toggles to two lights here in the living room.
One's off camera right now, but...
See, toggle.
Button #2 sets the bulbs to this specific colour right here.
We'll get back to that in a second.
Button number 3, I like to call this night life.
I'm not sure why...
Using button #2, I can set it back to what it was before.
And then button #4, it doesn't actually control these bulbs here.
Across the room,I have another Philips Hue controlled bulb.
This actually toggles that one.
So that's it for this video about the Hue Tap Switch.
I love this product, I actually have 2 in the house right now.
One's in the living room, one's in my mom's room.
I want another one for this studio space!
I think it is worth every penny
just because it generates its own electricity. Check this out!
That's it for this video,
thank you for watching, and I'll see you in the next one!