You can use Philips Hue bulbs without a grommet

Philips Hue lamps connect to a central hub that allows you to control your lighting remotely from your smartphone. However, if you’re looking to save some money and still want to use smart bulbs in your home, you can bypass the hub altogether and just use the Hue Dimmer Switch… you’re just missing out on some features.

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The Philips Hue Bridge hub costs $60 and you can get it bundled with select Hue bulbs for as little as $70. However, as long as you have a Hue Dimmer Switch, you can control Hue lights using the switch without the need for a hub or the Hue app on your phone.

You can buy a kit that comes with a $35 Hue Dimmer Switch and a Hue White Bulb, and it’s as easy as screwing on the bulb, turning it on with the master switch, pulling the battery tab out of the remote, and instantly being able to control the light. It literally takes 30 seconds to set it up.

RELATED: How to control your Philips Hue Lights with the Hue Dimmer Switch

As long as you want to control your lights with a dimmer, you don’t need a Hue Bridge hub at all. However, here are some things to keep in mind if you want to use such a setup, including what you can and cannot do.

Up to ten bulbs can be connected to one switch

This probably won’t be a problem for you unless you have a room with lots of light, but ten light bulbs is usually more than enough for one light switch.

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Now, if you want to cover your entire home with Hue lights and it takes more than ten lights to do so, you can always get more Hue Dimmer Switches and assign them to specific rooms using less than ten lights per switch, all unnecessarily. Hugh bridge hub.

As mentioned above, the Hue Dimming Kit comes with a switch and the bulb is already paired, but if you want to add more bulbs to that switch, all you have to do is screw in the bulb, turn it on, set the Hue dimming switch next to the bulb, and press and hold the power button on the switch until the small LED in the upper left corner of the switch turns green. The lamp will flash to confirm the connection, and you will do this for each lamp you want to add.

Colored light bulbs won’t change color

replica Philips Hue-Lights

One of the factors that has made Philips Hue lamps so amazing is that Hue White & Color lamps can turn into just about any color you can imagine.

The downside is that you can’t take advantage of this when using the hue dimmer switch, and all you can do is turn it on and off, and dim and brighten it. Because of this, you’ll want to stick with basic Hue White bulbs.

You can use more than one flashlight switch

If a single switch isn’t enough to adequately control the lighting(s) in your home, you can add a second switch to it to create the three way setup you see in many homes with their traditional light switches.

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I have a dimmer switch in my living room that controls the lights in that room, but I also have a second dimmer switch mounted upstairs so I can turn on the lights downstairs before I get there, which comes in handy when it’s dark. You can even get creative and have one switch control half of the lights and another switch control all of them in certain situations.

The process of adding another hue dimmer switch to lights that are already connected to the switch is the same as before: place the hue dimmer switch next to the lamp, press and hold the on button on the switch until the small LED on the top left corner lights up switch turns green. However, before doing this, you need to place both dimmer switches next to each other and hold both buttons at the same time until both LEDs turn green.

At some point it might make sense to just get a hub

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If you’re planning on buying a few Hue bulbs and a few Hue dimmer switches, it might make sense to go ahead and buy a Hue Bridge hub, especially if you’re spending all that money anyway.

It costs just $60 (the price of just four Hue White bulbs) and unlocks all the features of the Hue ecosystem, including the ability to create «scenes», control the lights from your phone, and even turn the lights on and off automatically. at any set time or every time you get home from work. It’s worth it.