I think that this direct control from button device to lights is only operating solution
I have one Ikea On/Off Button (old firmware) that is controlling Airam GU10 light using Zigbee Groups. Operation ( On/Off and dimming) is instant.
I haven’t found a suitable button device that would support Zigbee Group operations. Also SmartThings is not supporting Zigbee Groups in ST App. Zigbee library is supporting Zigbee Groups.
Is this device also sending dimmer level or only buttons to SmartThings?
@TapioX, thanks but Zigbee Groups won’t work for me because I am trying to control LIFX Matter lights locally. These lights can be controlled with the LIFX LAN Protocol (“BA LAN Drivers”), or with Matter-over-Wi-Fi. It is possible to do direct binding of Matter devices to each other but I have asked around and nobody seems to have a way to do it officially, unless you use Home Assistant. (I believe it should be possible by writing a script for any general purpose computer, that takes as input two Matter device codes, performs the Matter binding protocol between the two of them, and quits. That is knowledge of Matter that I do not personally have.)
In the case of BA LAN Drivers and LIFX Matter integration with SmartThings, the button action has to go to the SmartThings Hub and get processed before going to the target lights. The only other way would be a button device that is directly on the LAN and that can emit UDP packets to an arbitrary target, which is not what any commercially available residential IoT button is really built to do.
Here is a random but somewhat related question: how does Samsung Music Sync work under the hood? https://support.lifx.com/hc/en-us/articles/31102452845591-How-do-I-activate-SmartThings-Music-Sync
This article suggests that LIFX and/or Samsung hired engineers to actually work on this problem and solve the light-changing-fast-syncing issue…just for a totally impractical feature of little daily use value, while leaving us hanging with our custom driver hacks. 
Specifically, the Samsung Galaxy phone takes in audio data that is playing live, and instantly transmits color-changing commands to LIFX bulbs, presumably in time for a user to see and hear the changes at the same time. So, I am just wondering how it is implemented and whether the same code paths can solve our problems.
Matter (and Zigbee) lights already have commands for smooth dimming (Move up/down and Stop) as well as Step commands, there’s no need for more paths.
There are two problems:
The ultimate control for Matter lights is binding a Matter remote but of course, as discussed in other posts, there are not many around and only Home Assistant allows to “easily” create bindings at the moment.
Here is what I found:
Zooz ZEN32 Scene Controller: “Zooz Edge Drivers”: Held down event on start, Held event on end
SmartThings Button (Aeotec): default drivers: Held only (on start)
SmartThings Button (Aeotec): ST Zigbee Button Mc, “Mariano Shared Beta Driver”: Held only (on start) (the custom driver really is about custom settings for temperature, not about the held functionality)
LIFX 4-button switch: only Held command (on start). (As noted previously, “Dim Gradually” / “Brighten Gradually” in the LIFX app will cause LIFX lights to brighten/dim gradually, but it needs cloud access, it’s not working locally.)
Minoston Remote Control 0924 (MR40Z): skyEdgeDriver: Held only
Philips Hue Dimmer Switch, iQuix driver: Supports “Held”, “Held Down”, and “Held Up” events but I only observed “Held” event occur, not the other events. But, I just checked Settings and there is an option Held Event Firing Timing:
Okay so I guess the iQuix driver will work. There do not appear to be options for “Fire Multiple Events while Holding” to control the frequency of events, but this alone may work and obviate the Scene Switcher device (still need the Virtual Dimmer Device to send +/- Step commands).
Based on this info, I am going to try to get the other zooz scene controllers to compare capabilities.
If you plan to use this driver with Matter lights, @Mocelet driver has the same features and the driver directly controls Matter lights.
Mocelet’s driver also has many other really good features.
I recommend using Mocelet’s driver.
Update on tested buttons:
Philips Hue Dimmer Switch, iQuix driver: I switched “Held Event Firing Timing” to “Fire Down_hold/Up_hold events”. I confirmed that it does what one would expect it to do.
Zooz ZEN37 Scene Controller: “Zooz Edge Drivers”: Held down event on start, Held event on end
The Zooz ZEN37 is almost identical to the Minoston 0924 (MR40Z). However, the ZEN37 has three advantages: 1) there is a commercial provider who offers engraving ZEN37 remotes (don’t need to hunt around for an engraving service), 2) the ZEN37 is USB-C rechargeable at the bottom, and 3) the manufacturer-provided SmartThings drivers support separate held down & held events. Therefore the ZEN37 is entirely superior to the Minoston MR40Z, as far as I can tell.
I observed the time lag between holding down buttons on the Philips Hue Dimmer Switch and the Zooz ZEN37 Scene Controller. I cannot tell much of a difference. Therefore, I think lags are likely attributable to SmartThings hub processing itself.
@TapioX I tried the @Mocelet Matter driver and have observations, which I will post on that thread. Thanks.
Thanks, I’ve been looking for something to dim a TP-Link using an old IKEA Tradfri dimmer. I synced button and switch both directions and used the 17% step the TP-Link button implements in the switch. Seems to be working quite well!