This was posted 1 year 10 months 3 days ago, and might be an out-dated deal.

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Philips Hue Dimmer Switch $31 + Delivery ($0 with Prime/ $39 Spend) @ Amazon AU

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Seems to be the cheapest for the newer switch on Amazon AU according to 3camels. But not the cheapest ever, if you managed to grab an older version of the switch (I'm not too sure what the difference is between the old and the new). Tamagotchi Breeder lists the differences in a comment
Hope it helps someone!

(I copied the 'Delivery ($0 with Prime/ $39 Spend)' from another post - I've no idea if this is still true, and I'm struggling to find the current non prime shipping rates)

Thanks to nbn's comment:
Same price at JB HiFi so potentially you can get extra 10% off if you snapped the ultimate gift cards from WW previously.

Price History at C CamelCamelCamel.

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closed Comments

  • +2

    Are these for controlling hue bulbs only? If you are installing a smart switch why not just use one that can control regular bulbs as long as you are happy with the wiring of the lights and switches?

    I have always wondered the benefit of smart bulbs vs smart switches and am pretty sure I would go the switch route if I owned a place. I have a couple LIFX bulbs in lamps but it would be super pricy to switch the whole place to them.

    Anyone have any experience with the two options?

    • +2

      Yes, I think they might be for controlling hue bulbs only, or perhaps other bulbs that can connect to the hue bridge?

      I got the lounge rewired with a bunch of Hue ceiling lights - the lighting needs redoing in the whole house, but the lounge was pretty desperate for improved lighting, so it made sense to me to get one dimmer switch a while ago for that room. If the existing switches are used, then the 'smart' part of the bulbs is lost…

      I now have more bulbs in more rooms, and it would be nice for the kids to be able to control the brightness of them, or to change the 'scene' (I got the ambient white bulbs) without having to grab a grown up person's phone. I'm anti cloud voice control devices, otherwise they'd probably be a better option, I realise.

      When I was renting, I definitely didn't see as big an advantage to much smart home stuff in general, so I'm with you.

      • +2

        Yeah that makes sense. I guess if you are part of the ecosystem, this would be great. I am just so anti-"ecosystem" that I don't think I could go all in on one company like that. Also smart lights are expensive compared to regular bulbs and I'm a bit cheap.

        • +1

          So it looks like a couple of people have commented below that you can do a lot more with them… And I believe the hue bridge can handle other zigbee products too. So it's perhaps not as closed as you fear.

          I have, for example, hooked up by philips hue bridge to my home-assistant.io, and it can control my bulbs locally without having to go to any cloud based services, but I haven't done a whole lot else with it. I'm currently fighting with my AC and solar battery system, as I'd like to be able to control them via home assistant - when solar / battery is high, run the heating or cooling as needed as much as it wants. If it gets lower, either reduce, or turn off. But my hacking abilities are a bit lacking - neither the AC nor the solar battery have documented APIs :P

          • @virtualsid: There's a smart home automation product designed specifically to control ACs, Google it.

          • @virtualsid:

            I have, for example, hooked up by philips hue bridge to my home-assistant.io, and it can control my bulbs locally without having to go to any cloud based services

            Just pointing out that Hue on its own is a locally-controlled system, it doesn't use any cloud services to do anything (except remote login, obvs), unlike the Tuya or similar bulbs. So you don't "need" home assistant or other automation hubs to localise it.

        • +3

          Buy the Trådfri bulbs from Ikea, they are compatible with the Philips Hue system. Pretty easy to set up and save money on bulbs. They have a large variety of style and sizes.

    • +1

      installing a smart switch that controls regular bulbs requires an electrician

      • +1

        Fair point. If you are looking to switch a single room over maybe this with some smart lights would be a more cost effective option. Can't imagine it would be outrageously expensive to have a few switches installed by an electrician though.

        And I guess this solution work better for renters as switching light switches wouldn't really be an option.

        • I kept my hard wired switches as is, so I could isolate the circuits completely. I previously had a 'smart' bluetooth dimmer switch (needed an app on my phone for the bluetooth functions). It worked OK. But the control load signals that the electricity company sends at certain times of the day would make the LED bulbs flicker, and fail after some time. The solution was either an expensive filter for the lighting circuit, or new lights. I chose new lights. 10 hue ceiling lights + electrician to install them, around the same price as a control load signal filter.

          • +1

            @virtualsid: Yes, it is best to retain the hard wire switches to terminate the power if needed for resets etc.

          • @virtualsid: This. The ripples have blown off so many of my Phillips "LED light". But my Hue ones are rock steady for over 3 years now.

        • This. Our apartment complex doesn't have the required neutral wires for smart switches, and it would be a major hassle and cost to try and get a sparky in to install them. It's much easier to tweak a simple DIY system like Hue eg we wanted to add an LED strip under our bathroom cabinet, which we hadn't anticipated. Just waited for the Hue strip to go on sale at Amazon (pretty regular) and then grabbed it.

          Smart lights can really lend themselves nicely to hacks. eg we used a double adapter in the ceiling to add a security camera (Wyze) to the normal electric plug for the nearest downlight. If it were a smart switch, the camera would go off every time the light does.

          Another benefit to smart lights vs switches is you can adjust the temperature eg warm vs white. This has been pretty nice - at night we prefer a warmer yellow tinge, during the day the daylight temp works really nicely to fill out darker spots in our living room.

          We also found Hue lights eliminated the ripple frequency flashing that plagued our previous downlights.

    • Yes, these are for controlling the hue bulbs only (or compatible zigbee bulbs). These hue dimmer switch do not isolate the power, so it won't work for regular bulbs. It needs hard wiring to turn off regular bulbs. The benefit of smart bulbs is that you can use apps, voice commands linked to Google etc to control the on/off and colour temp. For the smart switches if it requires hard wiring, you will need an electrician to install. For use with regular screw or bayonet bulbs, you can set up the hue system without the need for an electrician making it portable if you need to move homes.

    • +3

      They can be used with any system that connects via Zigbee if you're using Home Assistant or similar. Could even use it for a TV remote if you had the inclination.

    • +1

      for controlling hue bulbs only?

      They are Zigbee, can pair direct to any Zigbee bulb. But the real value is as part of a smart system, using Hue bridge and/or Home Assistant, Alexa, etc. You can program them to do anything.

      wondered the benefit of smart bulbs vs smart switches

      They are many, and beyond the scope of this forum. But easy to DIY, and one switch can control a whole room - ceiling, task and ambient lighting.
      It is kind of boring to have ceiling lights and nothing else.

      Of course, you could choose both: a "smart switch" to control a battery of downlights, plus a Zigbee switch to control that plus your ambient lighting.

    • +3

      I use the Hue Dimmers with a Conbee on Home Assistant for a mix of lights (LIFX and Tuya based ones).

      I also printed these to make everything a bit more integrated.

      • OK. Now that is a genius way to cover the existing switches. Thanks for the tip!

    • These don't need to be installed. They're battery operated and completely wireless. The benefit of smart bulbs and switches like these is that you don't need an electrician to install or rewire anything, you connect it wirelessly and it's good to go. Plus being wireless these are portable, you can have the switch anywhere you like instead of being stuck in a specific place on the wall - I have one of these next to the couch, another on a bedside table etc.

      I use them with Hue bulbs but apparently they can work with other smart bulbs as well.

      As for cost, if you find them on sale or clearance they're not too expensive. I got a few Hue colour bulbs for $5 each a while ago, and picked up another Hue white starter kit for $15 just the other week.

  • +5

    I use these with Home Assistant to control other devices e.g. Tuya lights. Very happy with them for this purpose.

    I don't have any Philips hue bulbs.

    • I commented on Hipsi's post too - but more details around this would be awesome, so others can do what you do would be helpful for me, as I don't think I'm searching for the right terms…

      • You'll need Home Assistant installed (choose your flavour, most go with Raspberry Pi, I run it as a VM) and an "open" ZigBee bridge that can interact and expose ZigBee devices to Home Assistant, like the ConBee II (which I use) or SONOFF ZigBee 3.0 - these are typically USB devices that you can think of as a router.

        You then pair the Philips remote to the ZigBee bridge and program the remote's single or double tap events to whatever else you want on Home Assistant, be it turning on lights, opening your garage, feeding your pets, etc etc.

        Since Home Assistant has so many integrations with open and closed ecosystems, you can go pretty crazy with integrating various different brands and devices.

        • I appreciate your response. I should've provided more details. I was mostly wondering about how to control other stuff - like the Tuya lights via home assistant. But looking at Tuya - they seem to be Zigbee too, so they could be controlled directly/via the hue bridge?

          PS. I run home assistant in a container, which is possibly the stupidest possible way to do it, but I have the server setup, and adding a container was easier than running a VM :P. I don't, however, do a whole lot with it yet.

          edit: I also wasn't sure how to specifically control what the remote does, with home-assistant, instead of, say, the hue bridge.

  • +3

    With the use of Home Assistant and a zigbee coordinator, you can use it for literally anything. Press a button to send a canned email if you like, trigger a shelly to open/close your garage door, even as a remote for a sonos speaker.

    • +1

      I'm curious how you and Dice do this - would be awesome if you had a recommended place to start - I think my search-fu sucks :)

      And is the zigbee co-ordinator the hue bridge, or do you mean something like a USB dongle in your machine that runs home assistant?

      • Coordinator can be a USB, Ethernet or WiFi dongle/device.

        Start with the HomeAssistant website and forums, then check out the HA subreddit, the Discord etc. It's a huge rabbit hole, way more info than could ever be posted in an OzB comment.

      • Home Assistant is a smart device aggregation platform. Start there. You can make any two things work together, provided they're supported by Home Assistant. They don't need to be the same platform or technology.

        Home Assistant supports a large number of zigbee bridges, and usb dongles. You can use the Zigbee-MQTT or ZHA integrations to manage the zigbee network from within HA.

      • +1

        is the zigbee co-ordinator the hue bridge?

        It can be. That is the easiest way.
        But for some reason there is a delay in HA getting the signal from the Hue. So if you need rapid response from HA, not good.
        But with my lights mostly connected to the Hue bridge, it works for me.

        • Thanks! That was the missing piece of the puzzle - I already use home assistant, but wasn't sure about the rest of the stuff regarding the remote.

        • +1

          Yeh I think if you're going to do it, it's best to have a local ZIgbee co-ordinator on HA. I run my dimmers via a Conbee and there is no delay.

          • +1

            @bamzero: I use both. Hue bridge for lights and hue switches, ZHA for all other ZigBee devices.

        • If you set up your automation through node-red there is virtually no lag.

  • +1

    The switch talks to the bridge and the bridge pass the command to the bulbs (or other zigbee devices). So it supports all bulbs that already connect to the bridge.
    If you connect this using the Philips Hue app, you will get a dimmer switch (and choosing the 'scenes').
    If you connect using Touchlink (via 3rd party apps), you can customise the buttons to whatever you like.
    There are many tutorials online that step you through the setup.

    Same price at JB HiFi so potentially you can get extra 10% off if you snapped the ultimate gift cards from WW previously.

    • Adding the JB hifi info to the main post, thanks!

  • +1

    Same price at JB

  • +2

    The Philips Hue 100W 1600 Lumens Smart Bulbs are 20%\21% off currently on Amazon. This addresses a lot of complains about the normal Hue Bulbs that don't go bright enough. Discounted prices

    White ($35)
    Ambiance ($55)
    Colour ($87)

    If someones bored might be worth putting up a deal

    • +4

      Thanks for sharing, just be aware that these 1600 lumen bulbs are wider and longer compared to the normal Philips Hue bulb, so they may not necessary fit into the same space as a regular incandescent bulb. Need to check the space that is available in the light fitting.

  • https://www.bunnings.com.au/philips-hue-home-automation-wire…

    Will Bunnings price beat it by 10% as well?

    • +1

      Depends, Bunnings has gotten more picky about price beats these days…

      "same in-stock item that's available for same-day delivery or collection"

      They like to play the available for same day delivery card so depends what your Amazon ETA says and who you get in store, some are pickier than others.

      I'm not sure if they are referring to getting it delivered same day or just being in stock to send same day though.

      • Thanks for the info. I’m just thinking if JB HiFi is also doing the same price in-store, would it be easier to ask Bunnings to price beat JB HiFi?

        • Yeh if JB's shows in stock near you I'd definitely try against them instead. Don't leave it too long though, once head office catches wind of it they'll drop their price to match.

  • can I use this to control my Phillips Bluetooth bulb without getting a bridge? I currently use my phone to control it.

    • yes. Direct zigbee pairing.

  • +3

    Can you use Philips hub to automate the scene colours cool white/warm white of IKEA tradfi light bulbs (ZigBee)

    • +3

      Yes.

      • +1

        Thanks! Bought a few at IKEA since they were cheaper than the ambient white hue
        I do like the Philips hub but :) much better than the phone app

        • +2

          The ikea white and ambiance bulbs are great. Their hub does very little - much better to use the Hue hub, unless you need Homekit.

  • +7

    As has previously been mentioned, these can be used with any ZigBee light so long as you have a Hue Bridge.

    V1 and V2 dimmer differences:

    I have both V1 (old) and V2 (new) of these dimmer switches.

    V1:
    *V1 has the magnet on the plate and not the remote controlled switch itself.
    *V1 uses CR2450 batteries and needs a small screwdriver to replace (mind you they last forever).
    *V1 has 1 ON button and 1 OFF button, if you press the ON button again while it's already on (or press the on button twice while turning it on) it will inadvertently change colours/scenes (very annoying for my wife because she seems to always inadvertently does it, not so much me though).
    *V1 has a slightly smaller mounted plate to mount onto the wall, and the holes didn't align to switch plate brackets I already had installed on the wall, but easily fixed.
    *V1 has more of a gloss finish.

    V2:
    *V2 has the magnet on the remote itself so you can stick it on other metal surfaces.
    *V2 has a slightly smaller and more rounded remote control which feels better to hold.
    *V2 has CR2032 (more common?) and the battery panel comes off with a coin (no screws, much easier).
    *V2 has 1x ON/OFF Button and 1x HUE button which you can use to cycle colours/scenes. Less accidental colour/scene changes by using different buttons (unlike the V1).
    *V2 has a slightly larger plate to mount to the wall, but screws for some reason perfectly aligned to all my pre-existing drill holes (unlike V1).
    *V2 has a more of matte finish.

    That's all the differences I've noticed

    • I'd love to know how you were able to directly replace the existing plate brackets with the Hue plate. What was your existing plate brand and model? And where the screws didn't line up, how did you get around it?

    • if you press the ON button again while it's already on (or press the on button twice while turning it on) it will inadvertently change colours/scenes (very annoying for my wife because she seems to always inadvertently does it

      Why don't you set the scene for the second press to be the same as the first press?

      (for those that don't know, you can set up the on button to cycle through four different scenes depending on how many button presses you make)

  • Shame they put the hue branding on them, especially if you've got some of the previous switch and now they don't match.

    • V1 has no HUE button but it does have a small Phillips logo on the plate you mount to the wall.

  • +1

    FWIW There are a few differences between the old and new switches. The main visible one is the new switch has an on/off toggle button, and what was the off button is now a dedicated button to use for scenes. Personally I use Home Assistant so could already program any of the buttons to do whatever I wanted. The other main change I know of is the battery has changed from a CR2450 behind a panel that you use a screwdriver to remove, to a CR2032 that you use something like a coin to remove. Personally I prefer the panel with a screw but that's maybe just me, and the smaller battery may mean it will need to be replaced more often although on the flip side it will be cheaper and easier to get. The magnet that holds the switch in the mounting plate is also now in the switch itself - meaning it perhaps could be stuck to a fridge by itself without using the mounting plate.

    • Which Home Assistant to you use to change the buttons? If it's Google, I'd be keen to know how you did it.

      • https://www.home-assistant.io/ - you can associate actions based on the state of the switch. Pressing one button could turn on one or more lights, or even fire off a number of things like turn the lights off, close the curtains, lower the projector screen and turn on the projector…..

  • +3

    There is also a new tap switch /dial on the way:
    https://www.philips-hue.com/en-au/p/hue-tap-switch/871951444…
    Should be great for controlling lots of downlights and zones in an open plan area but I'm guessing we'll paud AUD 80 or more for a few months.

    • Oh, that looks nice. Maybe I could make something similar with an ESP32 (or equivalent). But by the time I make it, we'll probably have space ships capable of warp.

  • +1

    Found a code for the Sonoff Zigbee Dongle from Geekbuying to bring it down to around $25 delivered, figured might as well post as a new deal. Couple of $ more than the last time but still pretty decent price. Code will have limited uses like all their others and don't know how many times can still be used.
    Pairs well with these switches if you want to use with Home Assistant.

  • Not available anymore on Amazon?

  • +2

    Back on stock

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