Battery-less Philips Hue Tap switch taps in for US availability

July 20, 2014

US customers can now buy the Philips Hue Tap switch from the Apple Store to easily control their Philips Hue lights. Previously the Hue Tap was only available in Europe, which makes sense as Philips is a Dutch company. The switch has no batteries and is powered through kinetics simply by pushing the buttons. Yep, buttons — there are four three smaller round affairs and one big button that comprises most of the face.

Those buttons are all programmable and can be hooked up to any "scene" (a combination of specific lights, colors, brightnesses) from within the Hue App on your iPhone or iPad. Tapping a button once will turn on that scene, and again turns it off.

The Hue Tap is mountable, or it can be moved about freely. For the mounting a wall bracket and mounting tape are included in the box. Of course, you'll still need a Philips Hue bridge and Hue lights to really take advantage of the Hue Tap (a starter kit with one bridge and three lights is $200)

Right now the Philips Hue Tap in the US is only available from the Apple Store (both in retail locations and online), where it is priced at $59.95.