FAQ: Philips Hue and Other Smart Bulbs - What sort of light switches to use with them? (Long FAQ)

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I’ve been following this thread and tried a few of the solutions above but none of them were what I was looking for, or lacked functionality I needed.

Recently I discovered the Inovelli NZW31. It’s an affordable z-wave switch that looks like any other standard switch but it also has scene control by tapping (up to 5x) or holding the top or bottom.

The bonus when using their Device Handler (not the generic one) is you’ll be able to disable local control. When you do this it just acts as a button controller. This is useful because you can still turn off the load through the app or the air-gap switch (in case you need to change the bulb without having to turn your breaker off), but any regular user won’t be killing power to the hue bulbs if they physically hit off on the switch. I also use the multiple taps to change color.

It also works as a wired button controller without a load if you just connect Line and Neutral

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How is it working for you after all this time? I am in search of something similar, but opinions on Amazon are not so great - like it is breaking fast and often breaking connection.

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Looking at maybe starting to switch my dumb led bulbs over to hue. Most of my switches have been switched over to Leviton Vizia rf + dimmer switches. And to help with flickering extremely low loads I added Aeotecs Nano dimmer bypasses. This setup has worked wonders in rooms with only 1 or 2 bulbs and not flickering/pulsing at any dimming level. I understand I will need to direct connect the bulbs to power bypassing the switch. And the switch will communicate with ST then ST will turn on/off the bulbs. The questions are am I going to have to remove the Nano dimmer bypasses? And will the dimmer on the switch be able to dim the hue bulbs threw ST?