In late 2025, what’s the smallest possible single smart button (must be round) that works reliably with SmartThings?
(I have several posts on here in the last few weeks about all sorts of buttons and things that have proven not reliable.)
I have seen the round Philips Hue smart button mentioned, and I own one in a Hue environment. That is a good size, but because it is branded as “hue” it might confuse people in my place that is not Hue-based (it’s LIFX-based). It’s also very expensive: literally more expensive than the underlying LIFX bulb(s) that it is supposed to control. A generic round button is fine.
I have seen “Konke” listed from a few years ago, but I don’t know if that is a current product that reliably works with SmartThings and edge drivers. That product appears to be discontinued as of several years ago.
I have used it. It’s a good button. However, it’s too big. The SNZB-01P has a diameter of 45mm. The V2 Philips Hue Smart Button has a diameter of 32mm. The V3 Philips Hue Smart Button has a diameter of 45mm. Hueblog reviewed the differences.
I am putting this button on top of a wall lamp arm, so users can turn the smart bulb inside the lamp on and off. There is only so much space, unfortunately, and also a button as big (deep/thick) as the SNZB-01P will look too chunky.
Not round (but rounded ) and not cheap, this was the smallest button I could find on a similar hunt a while ago. Works well and reliably in my experience:
No longer in production but I have the ikea shortcut button. Its small and thin, not round. It takes a coin battery and battery life is fine if you can get latest firmware (needs ikea hub for that), with older firmware battery life is terrible.
I use Flic buttons, they can trigger SmartThing scenes. I wish Samsung would just buy Flic, as Flic is so much better at imagining themselves as being the end user and supporting more “difficult to implement” actions than just “turn on and off”.
For Sonos and Lifx I usually just connect the Flics directly to those without any SmartThing integration, Flic has an optional local network integration to these to avoid “cloud lag” etc. I do have the same Sonos and Lifx devices in SmartThings as well though.
But going this route will also requires a Flic Hub (for best performance), and introduces yet another layer of complexity.
Also I could be a bit worried about Flic with Ikea spitting out very low cost matter buttons and dimmer wheels. Although my Flic Twist and buttons (that are way smaller) are so much snappier and configurable so far, than the Ikea Bilresa dimmer and buttons. Though Flic also focus on being able to trigger matter devices (though I’m not using any matter intregration in Flic so far).
Update for clarity: Flic devices themselves though are not matter compatible and relies on bluetooth and their own protocol etc. and can themselves not be connected directly to anything else than a Flic hub, or directly to a phone/tablet/computer etc. using bluetooth.
I also have a couple of Fibaro KeyFob remotes connected to SmartThings (wish I could connect one to Flic instead for better action options).
Unlike IKEA, Flic doesn’t bridge the buttons to Matter nor have native Matter buttons so the buttons are not Matter compatible at all. What the Flic hub can do is use their own Flic buttons to control Matter devices, no different than what a SmartThings or Home Assistant hub can do with any button from any brand regardless of the technology.
Unlike IKEA, Flic doesn’t bridge the buttons to Matter nor have native Matter buttons so the buttons are not Matter compatible at all. What the Flic hub can do is use their own Flic buttons to control Matter devices, no different than what a SmartThings or Home Assistant hub can do with any button from any brand regardless of the technology.
Sadly, none of these fit the use case, except flic button, and we have had very bad experiences with flic (Flic Twist specifically).
Although I have not tried the Flic button specifically, we installed Flic Twist throughout the place and were hugely disappointed that sometimes the flic devices “go to sleep” and don’t cause the LIFX lights to respond for many seconds–and sometimes don’t respond at all. Apparently there are a lot of posts online about this phenomena. It’s just not a reliable product or platform.
Here’s a picture of the light and wall lamp arm we are trying to automate. The current arm has a twist knob on the top, which causes people to think it’s okay to twist the knob over and over again, which causes the LIFX light to reset itself. Putting the V2 Philips Hue Smart Button (32mm diameter) where the knob used to be (i.e., cutting the knob off) fits more-or-less perfectly. Anything much larger though will look very strange and inappropriate. Also, anything that is not round will also look strange and inappropriate.
I can’t speak to the flic twist specifically, but I have used the regular flic buttons for more than five years and have found them to be very reliable throughout that time. They do have to be within communication distance of their own hub, though.
so I would say that the platform can certainly be reliable for some of their devices, but it does depend on how you have it set up. And I can’t speak to all the devices.
Well, I have three flic buttons lying around, I guess I will deploy them and see if they can work reliably and consistently over an extended period of time (the flic hub is just one room over, but I have seen the lag problem even when I move the flic hub to be in the same room as the Flic Twists).
I can’t tell from the picture: is the large bulb cover piece metal or glass? If it’s metal, it could be that there is difficulty in getting the signal to the bulb itself, or perhaps to the button past the metal depending on the placement of everything.
Fair enough. Also, since the flic devices are Bluetooth very strong Wi-Fi in the room can drown out their signal, so that’s another factor to consider.
Thanks for asking. It’s metal. However, the signal from SmartThings to the bulb (Wi-Fi) is fine.
There is a problem (as documented, for example, in the Matter Playground thread) where the hop between the Zigbee (or Z-Wave, or Matter) controller to SmartThings hub, then to routines/rules, then to LIFX (over Matter) is not reliably fast. Smooth dimming and fast lighting scene switching on SmartThings appears to be almost impossible to achieve.
LIFX Switch with Matter binding to LIFX bulbs (including the bulbs in the wall lamp arm depicted) is pretty close to instantaneous, after it settles down from initial pairing. In that case, SmartThings plays no role. After initial pairing, I have observed extreme lag, sometimes 3-5 seconds, between the LIFX Switch button press and the LIFX Matter lights actually responding. If the network is rebooted or if Internet is disconnected, then toggle on/off with direct Matter binding works fast. I do not have a satisfactory explanation for this initially, but fortunately it settles down.
) and not cheap, this was the smallest button I could find on a similar hunt a while ago. Works well and reliably in my experience:
