Ok, time to start testing. I got 3 to try:
Iris has terrible reviews, Aeotec is a mixed bag, and Lutron seems to have the most positive reviews. I focused on reviews from smartthings users.
Ok thanks for the warning.
My husband is dying for me to get us an Echo… my hesitation is the size of our house. It’s a big ol’ Victorian, with old-school segmented rooms spread across 2 stories. We’d need at least 3 Echos to actually use it to issue commands throughout the house. I think I want the buttons in place first, then echo can be a convenience he and I enjoy down the road once I’ve got primary physical controllers in place.
Yikes. That’s all I need to hear to not want to deal with xaomi. Price sounds fantastic, but would rather pay more for less hassle.
I returned the Iris button after few weeks like the other folks.
The Lutron works nicely and it’s small, providing dimming functions to a bulb, very good value for the price.
The Lutron can also pilot directly a bulb so you could consider having a bulb automated without ST here. But I understand your have 3 lamps so you might consider using it as a switch only and either have 3 smart bulbs or one smart wall outlet. I recommend the Z-wave from GE you can find at Lowe’s:
Would it be possible to send a wake command to these buttons with a motion sensor? For instance, I’m planning on a Xiami button to control blinds. The bathroom also has a motion sensor, so it could theoretically wake up the button whenever anyone’s in there…
The Lutron connected bulb remote doesn’t work well with SmartThings. So I’m not sure it’s going to work the way you imagine it. But you can try it and see.
We use the flic buttons at our house and really like them, but we have a tablet set up on each other side of the house as a permanent home automation controller and have the flics paired to those.
As it happens, flic is just coming out with their own “hub” to address exactly this issue. It will cost about $89 once it’s for sale at Amazon. It’s still in pre-release and is expected to become available in late January. So then it becomes a question of whether you want to wait and see what the reviews are like.
The other alternative is just to buy a cheap wifi phone and use that for the same purpose. You can typically get these for about $25 from Walmart.
No that’s not how those devices work. You can’t send them a wake command. It’s part of the internal firmware. The whole point of being asleep is that during those periods it is not listening to the network at all. So it wouldn’t hear a wake command.
In some cases you can change how frequently they wake up, but then you use batteries faster, and I’m not sure that’s configurable on the Xiaomi anyway.
I can’t recommend the Aeotec Wallmote. It looks neat, but the touch sensitivity is hit or miss. Your devices must support association in order to use the slide, so keep that in mind. And even when you have it set up, the slide function is a finicky gesture to get right. I returned mine in exchange for the Remotec ZRC-90, which is surprisingly well-made:
https://www.zwaveproducts.com/shop/controllers/z-wave-wall-consoles/remotec-scene-master
The remotec 90 is very popular, and looks nice if you label the buttons, it’s just that it’s a lot of buttons. 
I have one of these, I think the issues people have is due to the poor battery compartment design. I had to put a paper shim under the battery where it sits in the drawer. This lifts the battery slightly so the top can make contact with the solder bump on the bottom of the circuit board. I had to also slightly bend out the side contact down inside the device so it can reach the battery side a little better.
This all made it more difficult to slide the battery drawer in and out, but it is doable. After that it has worked great, no issues. When it quits on me, usually means battery replacement time.
I have it mounted on the stairwell rail on the stairs side (not really visable from other side) we push it on our way to bed to fire our good night routine and shutdown the house.
I have a couple of Buttons/Remotes around the house and the one thats the most reliable is actually the Aeon Labs Minimote, if you buy the old version [DSA03202 v1] you can have them for around ~ $20 USD
They are Z-Wave and not ZigBee and from my experience z-wave is much more reliable in my setup than ZigBee
they are not very pretty but they are small, have rechargeable battery and 4 buttons you can assign to different things/routines in Smart Things
The other ones I have are the Xiaomi Buttons and although these are a pain to pair, once paired they do work well, they are dirt cheap and esthetically more pleasing than the minimote
I’ve had good luck so far with the Sylvania smart dimming switch. It’s a two button remote but works as four with two long push settings. It has a device handler and so far has been working good. I’ve only had it a few weeks though.
Yeah, that thing is pretty handy looking. It would be cool to put on the wall by entrances. On your way in or out of the house, you can really do a lot of stuff. All without ever touching your phone or shouting robotic commands into the air. And it’s not nearly as much of an eyesore as a lot of “solutions”.
How do you use that? On and Off (the top and bottom button) as a controller for separate devices?
If you were open to Philips Hue bulbs, you could use the Hue Tap and/or Hue Dimmer switch mounted to the wall.
My house is full of Hue and LIFX colored bulbs and I have never had an issue with anything dropping or failing since my original purchase going back over a year. They have survived firmware upgrades, mobile updates and haven’t had a single bulb (over 50 now, 8 of them outdoors - prepped for Xmas already).
Wow I forgot about this. If my Xiaomi kicks the bucket I’ll switch to this. Never had a problem with any Sylvania devices.
The battery-operated Sylvania dimmer switch @gavin mentioned seems to work well and there are different ways you can set it up. There’s now an official integration which turns it into a button controller (that’s a term that we use in SmartThings for a device where any button can be associated to anything that smart things controls, including starting A routine to change the mode or disarm smart home monitor or whatever).
With the official integration, it’s just a two button switch, the top and the bottom.
There’s an unofficial integration that lets you use it as a dimmer as well.
I like pretty much everything about this device except the way it looks on the wall. It’s just gigantic.
I use top short push for on. Top long push for on 100% in case the last time it was shut down it was not at 100%.
Bottom short for off. I haven’t figured out what I want for bottom long push, I was thinking maybe 50% or something.
I have the Osram/Sylvania two button switch and it works well with adding a hold function to each button. On 100%, Off, 50% and 20%. Is there a device handler that will allow smooth dimming 0% to 100%?
