- Go buy a $15 GE Link bulb, and screw it into an ugly lamp that should've been thrown away years ago
- Pair the GE Link bulb with your Hue Hub, and name the bulb something like: 'Hue Tap Receiver'
- Create a scene in the Hue iOS app that contains only the 'Hue Tap Receiver' bulb, and name it something like: 'Hue Tap Button 3'
- Again using the Hue iOS app, assign button three of your Hue Tap to the 'Hue Tap Button 3' scene
- Create a trigger in Indigo:
- Type: Device State Changed
- Device: Hue Tap Receiver, On/Off State, Becomes On
- Condition: Always
- Actions:
- Turn off 'Hue Tap Receiver'
- Execute action group of your choice for button 3
- Hide the ugly lamp somewhere out of sight where you can keep it plugged in
- To capture more buttons on the Hue Tap, you can create multiple scenes for your 'Hue Tap Receiver' bulb that set the brightness to different levels, like 25%, 50%, 75%, then create a trigger for each button with a condition that look for ranges of brightness, like 20-30% for button 1, 45-55% for button 2, 70-80% for button 3, etc. You can see the values of each 'button' brightness in the Event Log. I've noticed sometimes they can vary sightly, that's why it's a good idea to look for a range, rather than an exact value.
So, the biggest issue I've found with this solution is that it can take anywhere from 2 to 20 seconds for the button press to be recognized by Indigo. I know very little about the Hue Lights plugin code but I tried decreasing the sleep times in the Concurrent Thread and it may have helped a little. I imagine the maximum delay depends partly on the number of Hue bulbs you have installed?
Is it also the case that the Hub doesn't update status more than a few times per minute, or is that how the plugin is currently designed? Hoping it's the latter.
Could the plugin be modified to poll the status of a bulb that has been designated as a 'Hue Tap Receiver' at a much shorter interval, like once per second?
Yes, this is not the most elegant solution (or trick), but it allows Indigo to see the Hue Tap, it's inexpensive , and relatively easy to implement.
If you're feeling like the unpredictably slow response of this trick is a show stopper, this can still be of use where time isn't of the essence. For example, I have a Hue Tap near my back door and I used this method to set button 3 to turn off all the lights in my house and change my house mode to Away. When it's time to leave, I press button 3, and walk out the door. It doesn't matter that it may take 20 seconds for the actions to execute. When I come home, the door sensor turns my lights back on, and changes my house mode back to Home.
Anyways, hope you find this useful! Maybe this method can be improved or incorporated into the Hue plugin in some way.
-chris