I have so many ways to control my Philips Hue lights at home—like my Google Nest Hub, my Pixel Watch 2, or Pixel 9 Pro XL—that you’d think I wouldn’t need to use any other device to control my lights. Because why?
But when Philips was Hue Wall Tap Rotary Light SwitchI was immediately intrigued and decided to grab one, expecting to probably return it. But the opposite happened. I use it every day instead of all the other methods I used to use.
The Dial will cost you $50, and it’s almost never on sale. So if you’re looking to buy one and you see each kind of discount, I would recommend just going for it. The biggest discount I’ve ever seen is right now, thanks to Amazon’s Labor Day sale. Today, the Tap Dial is 5% offbut you can apply an extra 15% discount coupon, saving you 20% on a device that is rarely on sale anyway. This discount is only valid for the black version of the Tap Dialwhile the white variant is currently full price.
If you’re not a fan of Hue’s high prices, you can now take advantage of even bigger discounts on Govee’s fantastic bulbs.
What I like about this light switch
The Dial itself looks like a hockey puck with four buttons on the front, with a rotating outer wheel for brightening or dimming your lights. The four buttons each have little dots numbered 1-4 on them, so you can feel which button you’re pressing, even in the dark. The buttons can be assigned to a single light scene, cycle through all of them, or trigger an automation you’ve created in the Philips Hue app. The amount of customization you can do with this thing is pretty impressive.
There’s something interesting about going back to a physical object to control your lights, when the idea was to get away from your light switch. There’s a more traditional light switch plate that you can mount on your wall (I have mine next to my dusty, neglected light switch). The puck itself is magnetic, so you can easily place it on the plate or stick it on your fridge or wherever.
If I had one complaint about the Dial, it would be a very specific one, and it’s that it only works with one room or “zone” in your home at a time. While you can assign the Dial to a different room from the app, I would love it if each of the buttons could control different scenes for different rooms. I typically only use one button, since it cycles through my scenes, leaving the other three buttons largely untouched.
That particular complaint probably won’t interest most people, and yet it doesn’t stop me from Philips Hue Wall Tap Rotary Light SwitchFor more information, check out the best Labor Day deals under $25.
